


Haunted

by m_findlow



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:07:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 37
Words: 50,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27300937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_findlow/pseuds/m_findlow
Summary: The team investigate rumours of a haunted house in rural Wales.
Relationships: Gwen Cooper/Rhys Williams, Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 6
Kudos: 36
Collections: Spook Me Ficathon 2020





	1. Chapter 1

When Gwen pulled her Renault into the underground car park beneath the Millennium Centre, she could already see Jack and Ianto standing around the SUV. She checked the time on the digital display of her dash and realised she was on time, even a few minutes early. Whatever it was she'd been called in for this morning, it wasn't happening here at the hub.

‘None of Ianto's coffee for you this morning, Gwen,' she murmured to herself and she slid into the parking spot and killed the engine. She reached over to the passenger seat and grabbed her overnight bag - the one Jack had told her to pack.

‘Morning, Gwen Cooper!’ Jack called out, stuffing a box into the boot of the SUV. ‘Looking good!’ he added with a wink. ‘Military chic suits you,’ he said, clearly referring to the combination of black jeans and a cargo green jacket with brass button epaulets, over a striped black and white top. ‘Must be my keen sense of fashion rubbing off on you.’

‘Yeah, keep telling yourself that Mister nineteen forties.’ Unlike Jack, hers had come from Topshop for fifteen quid and not the local army surplus store. God but they must have had a lot of surplus after the war. Ianto must be their best, and probably only, customer she decided. The way Jack went through military coats, they must be about to run out. Gwen sidled over to where Ianto was watching Jack take charge of packing the SUV. ‘No suit today?’

He idly studied his sleeve, picking off a small bit of lint. ‘Jack insists that this isn't that kind of investigation.’

‘It's a trip to the country, Ianto!’ Jack called out, eavesdropping on their conversation. ‘Nobody wears a suit in the country. Only the local undertakers, and those guys are just creepy.’

Ianto shrugged at Gwen, clearly having decided it was easier to go with it than to argue with Jack about his wardrobe choices.

‘Well, it suits you, pardon the pun.’ It was rare she got to see Ianto dressed in anything else, but the dark blue jeans and burgundy knit jumper still made him look smart. If anything, it took away the sharp corners of his appearance, softening it. She couldn't quite explain why she thought that. She'd seen him right down to completely naked and never given it a thought - Torchwood made you get over that kind of thing pretty quickly. She wasn't sure why seeing him dressed a little more casually should change anything. Dressed however he was, he was still Ianto. Maybe it was just the lack of a stern expression, or that little frown he so often wore.

‘So, do you know why Jack texted me last night saying I should pack a spare change of clothes and a toothbrush and meet here at ten?’ Explaining it to Rhys had been interesting. Most of the time he didn't bother to ask for details anymore, but as soon as he spotted Gwen pulling the small bag down from the top shelf of the cupboard, his suspicions were raised. What kind of Torchwood business required luggage? Where was she going? When would she be back? All good questions for which she had no answers. 'I'll bring you back a souvenir,' she promised him before he'd told her in no uncertain terms, 'if it's alien, you'd better bloody not.'

Ianto gave her a pensive look. ‘I'd like to say that sharing a bed with Jack gives me insight into the inner workings of his mind, but I'm as much in the dark as you.’

Gwen nodded thoughtfully. ‘Ah, so this is one of those Jack doing his big dramatic reveal moments again.’ Pressing Jack for information before he was ready was an exercise in futility.

‘He does love being dramatic and mysterious,’ Ianto agreed. He slipped his hands into his jeans pockets and cocked his head sideways. ‘What were you doing at Tesco this morning, anyway?’ he asked, addressing the back of Jack's head.

‘Getting supplies,’ Jack said, thumping the boot down. ‘What did you think? Can't work on an empty stomach.’

Ianto leaned closer to Gwen. ‘Apparently they don't have food in the country.’ She smirked.

‘Come on, Jack,’ Gwen implored. 'Spill the beans. Rhys wants to know why it looks like I was packing for a weekend in France. It's not a weekend in France, is it?’

Jack delivered one of his trademark smiles. ‘If it were, Gwen Cooper, I'm sorry to say I wouldn't be inviting you. Unless of course, you've changed your mind on threesomes.’ He waggled an eyebrow at her, causing her to roll her eyes back at him.

‘Well, that's my hopes dashed,’ Ianto teased. ‘Just another boring Torchwood investigation.’

Jack rested a placating hand on his arm. ‘Think of it like a long weekend off.’

‘Except that it's Tuesday. And we don't do long weekends off. Or any weekends off for that matter. I'd love to know when, if ever, this weekend in France might eventuate.’

‘Next chance we get, I promise,’ Jack said, bending down to pick up their overnight bags and hefting them onto the back seat. ‘Now, that's everything.’

Gwen folded her arms across her chest. ‘You still haven't told us where we're going or why.’

‘We've got four hours on the road. Plenty of time for me to tell you everything and leave time left over for several rounds of I Spy. Are we ready to go?’

Ianto gave Gwen a look and sighed theatrically. They both knew they had little say in the matter. ‘Lead the way, oh captain, my captain.’

Jack grinned and chuckled. ‘I love it when you call me captain.’

Gwen pushed Ianto forward towards the passenger door before he could think of anything else clever to say. ‘Just get in the car.’

He turned his head back to her and lowered his voice. ‘Don't worry, I packed a thermos of coffee. Just as soon as Jack shuts up and gets us on the road.’

She smiled, unable to express her gratitude at his endless thoughtfulness. ‘I love you.’

‘Hey, I heard that!’ Jack cried.


	2. Chapter 2

Ah, the countryside. There really wasn't anything like it, Jack thought as the SUV sped down the dual carriageway, chewing up the miles with ease. He loved the city with all its hustle and bustle, curious people and it's cluttered mix of eighteenth century architecture and twenty first century modernism. Only on a place like Earth could the Gothic sandstone gargoyles cast their judicious gaze across the street at a monolith made entirely of turquoise glass that reflected back at them their own horrific countenances.

He'd lived many places; growing up on the sand dunes of Boeshane, surrounded by the blue waters of an ocean that beat endlessly against the shore; the spartan space ports of Ellan Five where the Time Agency and its academy called home, nothing more than a cafeteria and a bunk to lay his head with the inky starlit vista beyond the portholes no bigger than a dinner plate; a dozen worlds where the skyscrapers really did touch the clouds and the deepest depths of a war torn star system, buried in a bunker where sunlight had not touched its occupants for well over two centuries.

But this, planet Earth, with its many varied civilizations and geographical diversity was home now. The lush valleys were a sea of endless green undulating up and down, but finally beyond them, the country flattened out into vast tracts of farmland. Golden fields and pale green paddocks swept up and down the country with nothing more than squat little wire fences to keep in their numerous cattle and sheep.

It was peaceful out here and he rolled down the window so that the country air could hit him square in the face. A hundred and forty years ago it wouldn't have been his first choice of places to be stranded - it wouldn't have even made the top five hundred in all likelihood - but now he couldn't bear to leave it.

He sucked in a deep breath of cool country air and sighed contentedly. ‘Any more of that coffee left?’

‘No. And you've had three cups of it already. Plus breakfast. How you haven't needed to stop for a bathroom break yet is beyond me.’ Jack detected the ever so subtle tension in Ianto's voice and reached out to pat his knee. At the same time he afforded a quick glance at Gwen through the rear vision mirror. She was staring out the window and trying hard not to meet his gaze.

He knew they were both itching to find out where they were headed and why. Jack strung them along a little while longer. He loved leading them by their curious noses. He couldn't have asked for two better companions, though never forgetting those who were no longer with them.

‘Jack Harkness, if you don't start telling us what we're doing out here in the next ten minutes, there's going to be a mutiny of epic proportions,’ Gwen threatened out of nowhere, yet almost as perfectly timed as Jack could have laid money on the exact moment she'd finally crack. ‘Am I right, Ianto?’

He nodded. ‘And no coffee.’

‘Oh, I borrowed a jar of your secret stash, just so you know,’ Jack assured him. ‘Packed it with everything else.’ There was no way he was going a whole three days without coffee. That would definitely end in a mutiny of one kind or another.

Ianto heaved a sigh. ‘Of course you did. I could have arranged provisions if you'd only told me what we needed.’

Jack jumped on the momentary drifting off on a tangent, drawing out the big reveal a little longer. ‘I like grocery shopping. It's exotic.’

‘Like offices?’

Jack grinned. ‘But with less sex. Mostly.’

‘I can't explain why,’ Gwen began, ‘but that fills me with a strange sense of relief.’

A grin broke out on Ianto's face. ‘It's why we don't let Jack anywhere near the fresh produce section. All those bananas and cucumbers would be far too tempting.’

‘Salami is far better if you're into that sort of thing, just so you know.’ Jack chuckled in spite of himself. ‘You twenty first century humans manufacture the craziest things into foods. I love it. Scotch eggs, Wasabi peas, whipped cream in a can…’

‘They don't have whipped cream in the future?’ Gwen asked.

‘Not the kind that comes out of a can.’ He shook his head. ‘I can't understand why it didn't survive into the future. The things you can enjoy more with whipped cream…’ He let his mind drift off at the thought. He'd considered himself well traveled until he hit the nineteen fifties and hooked up with a guy in California who ran a soda shop and introduced Jack to the idea that whipped cream and chocolate sauce weren't just fine ingredients for a milkshake. His milkshake had certainly brought all the boys to the yard, that was for sure!

Ianto coughed and cleared his throat. He clearly thought Jack was daydreaming about their own whipped cream adventures, although Ianto was more of a salted caramel guy, not that Jack was complaining. ‘So, now that we've drunk all the coffee and had a decent serving of shameless innuendo, can you please tell us where we're going?’

Jack grinned. He loved this part. ‘Abercrafen.’

‘Never heard of it.’

‘Of course not. Population three dozen and that's if you include the pets.’

‘So, what's there?’

‘Abercrafen House, from which the tiny hamlet earned its namesake. A house that for the last fifty years has been the site of unnatural events and rumors of ghosts.’

Gwen’s facial expression was barely suppressed as Jack clocked it in the rear vision mirror. ‘A haunted house out in the middle of nowhere. Great.’

‘Yeah, because nothing bad has ever happened to us out in the middle of the remote Welsh countryside,’ Ianto added. ‘And that's before you add ghosts into the mix.’

‘Relax, you two. There's no haunting and no ghosts. Aliens, or alien tech at the very least, but that's it. I'm certain of it.’

Jack caught Gwen's little frown in the reflection. ‘So, why now? What's our interest in it all of a sudden?’

‘The place has been on the market for the past eighteen months but no one has lasted there more than a few weeks. They say they've heard the ghost of its last long term occupant haunting its halls. Or so they claim.’

‘And who was the last occupant?’

‘Don't know. But he was there for nearly five years before he hung himself one night. Ever since... Well, you get the picture.’

‘And how did you hear about this?’ Ianto enquired. ‘I assume you weren't perusing the rural real estate market late at night when you should have been in bed.’

‘Email from an old friend.’

Jack waited for the trademark Ianto Jones smirk. ‘Ah, another one of your old friends. How old exactly?’

‘Down boy. Father Michael is in his seventies. And celibate. He's the local parish priest. Asked if we could take a look so that's what we're doing. Maybe it's an alien projection unit, or a crack in the walls between dimensions, or spores from a plant causing hallucinogenic side effects. Our job is to find out.’

It only took two seconds before the pair of them had their phones out, checking the place out. He knew neither of them could resist getting a preview of the place. And he had to admit, it was very preview worthy.

‘Unique nineteenth century two storey country farmhouse,’ Ianto read from the real estate website. ‘A once in a lifetime opportunity to own a piece of heritage Welsh architecture. Home comes fully furnished with period furniture and dressing. And by period they probably just mean old. I've seen estate agents talk up a rubbish dumpster in Splott as high-end living. No pictures of the inside. Curious. Inspection by appointment only. ’

‘I can't find anything on record for the land title,’ Gwen announced.

‘Probably all still handled by the local parish council,’ Jack replied, ‘stuffed in a tin with every other document relating to the town since the seventeen hundreds.’ That was their idea of administering local affairs. He doubted anyone had ever moved from the town let alone sold a piece of land. They were born there, lived there and died there. A little bubble of people locked in time forever. History preserved. God he hoped they didn't all speak Welsh.

Ianto was studying his phone again. ‘Where's this bed and breakfast you've booked us? Or do they have a local pub?’

A grin broke out over Jack's face as he held his silence and let his expression do all the talking for him.

‘Oh, you didn't.’

Jack put on his best mockery of an innocent face. ‘Didn't what, Ianto?’

‘We're staying there? In the haunted house?’

‘It's fully furnished! Why not? Unless you want to sleep in the SUV.’

Gwen raised her hand. ‘For the record I vote for not sleeping in the SUV.’

‘There you are, Ianto. We have a majority vote. Besides, it's just a house.’

Ianto folded his arms across his chest in a distinctive show of petulance, which Jack found endlessly adorable. ‘I reserve the right to sleep in the car if it ends up being a dump.’

Jack smiled. Dump or not, he pressed the accelerator pedal a little firmer. He couldn't get there quick enough now just to see the reaction on Ianto's face.


	3. Chapter 3

Ianto had a cramp in his ankle and a need to use the bathroom, but resisted the urge to say “are we there yet?”. Jack was clearly enjoying this little adventure out into the country so he didn't want to be the official wet blanket on their trip. Plus, how often did they really get out past the city limits? Most days Ianto was lucky if he got past the tourist office. And even then, it usually wasn't a pleasant experience.

It was just a house, he told himself. A nice old house out in the beautiful Welsh countryside. Jack was right. There were no such things as ghosts. All his years and all the things he'd seen had led him to hold some very strong beliefs about what could and couldn't exist in the universe. Paranormal stuff just wasn't part of the equation. There were no mummies, no zombies - except for the kind that were brought to life by the overactive imagination of a teenager in an alien induced coma - and definitely no ghosts.

‘They could be projections from the past,’ he blurted out, forgetting that he'd been having a conversation with himself and hadn't let the others join in yet.

‘What?’ Gwen asked, her train of thought interrupted by his musings.

‘Like that time with Tommy Brockless,’ he explained. ‘Bits of the past seeping through into the future.’ It wasn't like him to speculate on things he hadn't yet seen but he wanted to discount the supernatural out of hand by putting forth some other explanation as to why people might think they imagined the ghost of a dead man.

Jack nodded thoughtfully. ‘It could be. Only we don't have any rift keys to send back through time to close up a gap like that.’

‘Okay… so let's hope it's not that then,’ Ianto said, falling back silent. Come up with a problem you can fix next time, he told himself. Mushrooms. Maybe they all ate the local mushrooms. Note to self, if you see mushrooms, don't eat them.

Jack fumbled with a map in his lap as he rounded the bend in the road, trying to refold it to a different section.

‘We do have a satnav, Jack,’ Ianto reminded him.

‘I tried that this morning. It had absolutely no idea where to go so I'm resorting to good old fashioned paper maps.’ He flapped it around again across the steering wheel until Ianto snatched it away, folding it neatly back into its sixteen rectangle format and searching vainly for a tiny spec marked Abercrafen, which didn't even register on the map's index. He finally located it after ten minutes of intense searching, thinking he was going to have to retrieve a magnifying glass from the glovebox to find it. ‘Somewhere in the next seven miles is a tiny Y junction at which point I suggest you veer left. And perhaps slow down so we don't miss it and end up in Conwy.’

‘See? Who needs a satnav when I've got you?’

Ianto patiently refolded the map into a more manageable shape, now that he had their route marked out. ‘Perhaps it wasn't that the house's occupants left and never came back but simply that they could never find the place again.’

Gwen heaved a sigh. ‘Don't suppose we know where any of them are now so we could ask them what they saw, either.’

‘I don't think they'd be all that reliable, Gwen,’ Jack said, setting his focus back on the road, looking for the turnoff. He slowed the SUV right down as something poked out between thickets of blackberries. ‘Is that it?’ he asked, spying a narrow gravel road almost completely hidden from view.

Ianto consulted the map. ‘Nothing else for another ten miles at least so I guess that must be it.’ They could have at least had a sign, he thought, or maybe the people who lived there didn't want visitors.

‘He said it was right at the end of the road,’ Jack said, 'so I guess we just keep driving. We either find it, or we end up in someone's paddock.’

There were a few rusted farm gates along the winding road that Ianto assumed must belong to the locals, wending their way down to cosy little cottages nestled on wide acreage. The road however grew narrower, more bumpy and even more winding, and deep down he knew that they'd crossed some invisible threshold between public access and private property.

‘There she is,’ Jack announced, as a drab stone house emerged from between the trees that surrounded it. It was just like the picture on the website, square rough hewn stone, stoic and plain, as Jack pulled the SUV up right out by the front. There were no English gardens or box hedges to welcome you to the door, just a scruffy, overgrown collection of weeds and shrubbery plants that had gone to seed and taken over.

‘A bit more run down looking than the photos,’ Ianto remarked. ‘Shabby chic?’

‘I doubt they found time for gardening, those people who moved in and then moved straight back out,’ Gwen said, leaning her head sideways against the window to look up at the building rather than out across the verge gone to pot.

Jack didn't wait for them to make further comment. He was out of the SUV in a flash, making long strides around the front of the house and turning right at the corner.

Gwen slammed shut her own door as they exited and frowned in the direction of where they'd last seen Jack before he'd disappeared around the corner. ‘Where's he off?’

Ianto gave her a shrug and followed after Jack.

The side of the house was just as shabby with what counted for a garden as the trees threatened to encroach on the space. There were rough timber beams that warped in places that seemed to mark out garden beds with a few straggling potatoes and carrots still clinging to life in them. A flat section of dirt marked out a path between that led from there to a small structure jutting out from the side of the house. A creak was heard as Jack pulled open the rickety wooden door and stood half in the doorway. The room was small and dirty, full of rusted yet sharp looking tools, wire baskets containing small chocks of wood and lumps of dark black brown rock which he supposed must be coal. A much larger pile of wood was stacked up along the side of the coal house and the main house.

‘What are you doing?’ Ianto asked, catching up with him and seeing Jack stretched, like he was hanging from the top of the doorway by his fingertips.

‘Trying to find the key,' he said, still running his hands along the inside of the doorframe. ‘It's where I got told to find it. Ow! Splinter!’

Ianto shook his head. ‘Couldn't just leave it under the gnome like everyone else.’

Jack chuckled. ‘Where's the fun in that? I just…’ He gingerly patted along the edges again, slower and more thorough this time, just as Ianto might have suggested he do in the first place to avoid impaling his hand on a large wood splinter. ‘Ah ha!’ He held up a large brass key on a ring with a smaller regular shaped key.

Gwen raised an eyebrow. ‘Two keys?’

Jack beamed as he pulled free the splinter that had lodged in his middle finger, tossing it aside. ‘One for the old lock, one for the newer double deadlock. Can't have just any old person getting inside.’

Gwen peered judiciously up at the house. ‘I didn't think people in the country locked their doors.’

Ianto grimaced at the deadlock key. ‘Or maybe the locks were there to keep out whatever is around here.’

Jack waggled the keys in their faces, his face lit up like that of a child. ‘All the more reason to open her up and get inside, wouldn't you say?’

It took all of Ianto's willpower not to roll his eyes at Jack. It was precisely that kind of reverse psychology he hated.

Jack fussed first with the deadlock, which looked solid enough embedded in the thick wooden door, before slipping the large comical looking brass key into the older lock and giving it a hard turn as the lock mechanism protested against being moved. It clunked with a resounding noise of slightly rusted tumblers moving into place to admit them entrance. Jack pushed open the heavy door and stepped inside, holding it open for them.

‘Wow,’ Gwen breathed out in awe. ‘It's like something off a Downton Abbey film set.’

Ianto's own jaw locked in astonishment for a moment, taking in the foyer. ‘Okay, I take back the comments about the furniture earlier.’

The floor of the foyer was magnificently parqueted in alternating squares of cherry and ash. The lacquer was worn in places where foot traffic was high but otherwise it was in pretty good condition. It stretched as far as he could see from the front of the house to the back, where it met tall windows that let in the light from the acreage beyond. To the right was the base of a large staircase that hugged the wall and led up to a balcony mezzanine level as it encircled the back wall, diverging left and right, leading off to other rooms. It made the place seem bigger than it was, having the entire middle of the house stretch up the full two storeys. The walls were painted a rich claret and were covered in a dense patchwork of tapestries, paintings of country idylls and fox hunts and stags heads. He was convinced that it must have been the collected works of everyone who'd ever lived here. No one person could have afforded that much stuff, or if they could, why pack it all into a place out here in the middle of nowhere?

Jack leaned close enough to his ear that he could feel the warm breath ghosting across it. ‘Might someone be a little impressed?’ He nodded without speaking. ‘Gotta admit,’ Jack continued, ‘I wasn't expecting quite this. A cosy place out in the country, sure, but things would have to be pretty bad to kill yourself and leave all this behind. Which is to say nothing of the people who came after.’

Jack clapped his hands together and both he and Gwen startled at the sound as it echoed around the room, caught up in trying to take it all in. ‘Okay, kids. Let's go get our stuff unpacked. Ianto, you're with me on firewood collection duties.’

‘But…’

‘There'll be plenty of time for looking around later,’ Jack promised him. ‘For now, we need to get the boiler going. Unless of course you prefer a cold bath in the morning.’

He trundled after Jack, leaving Gwen to unload equipment from the SUV. Having to be responsible for keeping your own hot water going was probably one of the downsides to living here that he'd discounted.


	4. Chapter 4

‘Where do you want this?’ Gwen asked, cradling the inertial wave recorder, and catching Jack in a brief moment as he streamed past on one of his many trips from the coal house outside to the kitchen at the back of the house.

‘Just stick it on the dining room table with everything else,’ he replied. ‘Once we've done a proper reconnaissance of the place we can figure out what equipment to stick where.’

Ianto swept past, overtaking Jack on his own trip to the kitchen. He managed to spare Gwen a look as he went by. ‘Yes, I know!’ she said before he could get a word in edgeways, ‘don't scratch the table top!’ She puffed out a vexed breath. He was such a fuss pot sometimes! She'd been careful, laying out everything on the dusty table runners. At least the table was big enough for it all, sturdy mahogany with five chairs to a side and one at each end, with a huge crystal chandelier hanging over it all. There were days where she had no idea how they managed to fit so much equipment into the SUV, seeing it all now laid out along the large table. Jack must have packed up half the hub and brought it with them.

She took one last trip out to the car, gathering their three overnight bags onto her shoulder and a handful of plastic shopping bags, before nudging the door shut with her hip and heading back inside. She dropped the three pieces of luggage temporarily on the dining room chairs and carried the rest into the kitchen.

There was a small room at the back, just off the main foyer, which seemed to be a smaller dining room. It was just a pokey little space with a table and chairs for four and a window that let in lots of pale yellow light across the table. She dropped the bags on the table and peered out through the window. Hills rolled out beyond the house, finally disappearing into trees, but it was the funny stones poking up out of the grass not thirty feet away that caught her attention.

She was still studying the view when Ianto appeared, leaning in the doorway with his sleeves rolled up and his face flushed.

‘You can chase aliens all day long on a single cup of coffee and half a night's sleep but carrying a few bits of firewood has you out of puff?’

He rubbed the back of his wrist across his forehead. ‘It was a bit more than just a few logs. Had to get the boiler going from scratch, and the fireplace in the main sitting room. Plus it's a lot of stairs down there.’

‘Down where?’

He thumbed back over his shoulder. ‘The boiler is under the house. There's a narrow set of stairs next to the larder.’ As he said it, Gwen could hear heavy boots thudding up them as Jack came to join them.

‘Phew! Glad that's done. Couldn't fix us a coffee now that we've got enough wood for the aga, could you?’

‘Shall I fetch the water from the pond with a bucket, or can I expect that there's taps and plumbing?’

Jack grinned. ‘There's even a working fridge.’ He rifled through the bags on the table. ‘You can stick this in there,’ he said, handing over a carton of long life milk.

‘Anything else, sir?’

‘Nope. These biscuits can take care of themselves,’ he replied. Gwen heard him already ripping the plastic off a packet of what she assumed would be jammie dodgers.

‘Have either of you two noticed what's out there?’ she asked, pointing through the window. ‘Maybe I'm mad, but those things sticking up in the ground look a lot like gravestones.’

Jack came and stood next to her, the sound of muffled biscuit chewing continuing as he stared through the slightly grimy window. ‘I think you're right, Gwen.’

‘They carefully neglected to mention the graveyard in the promotional material,’ Ianto remarked. ‘I spotted it from the kitchen windows as well. And you wonder why people think the place is haunted.’

‘I don't think it would add to the overall perception of charm to advertise it,’ Jack said. ‘Don't get hung up on it. The dead stay dead. You know that.’

Gwen couldn't resist a tiny smirk as she looked up at Jack. ‘Except for you.’

‘What can I say? I'm one of a kind.’

‘Thank God,’ Ianto muttered. ‘Now, come help me find a kettle and some crockery? It'll all need washing, of course. And bring all that stuff from the breakfast parlor into the kitchen.’

Gwen raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Breakfast parlor?’

‘That's what it's called.’

‘Right. Of course. Silly me thinking it was a dining room. Could you direct me to the powder room before we have tea? A lady needs to freshen herself up for such a formal occasion.’ She grinned, hoping to jibe him sufficiently with his vast and quite useless knowledge of all things ridiculously middle and upper class.

‘As much luck finding one of them as there is finding a bloody microwave,’ he grumbled, opening all the cupboards in sequence. ‘Ah, found a kettle though,’ he said, holding a large metal pot aloft and walking it over to the stove.

She leaned over his shoulder, watching his attempt to light the medieval stove. ‘Your kettle is broken. It's missing a switch and a plug.’

‘Har har. Now, go be a good scullery maid and find some mugs to wash.’

By the time the kettle was whistling on the top of the stove and they were seated around the parlor table, any opinions Gwen held about the place being haunted had melted away. It was just a run down old country house with a lot of dated furniture. With the stove and the boiler room going, some of the heat was even starting to permeate through the kitchen. They'd also got a fire going in the large sitting room, though she doubted it would rise sufficiently to warm the rest of the house and the upper floor.

It must be freezing here in winter, sleeping up there with nothing but a hot water bottle and a few blankets. Lonely too. She couldn't imagine wanting to live some place so isolated from everyone and everything, not to mention the upkeep. By the time you'd finished dusting and polishing everything, it would be time to start all over again. She supposed that was why half the furniture she'd seen so far was covered in sheets, to keep off the dust.

‘So, what's the plan, Jack?’ She didn't imagine they were just going to sit here, drinking coffee, and wait for something to happen.

He threw back the last remains of his mug of coffee and leaned back in the wooden chair as if he were on holiday rather than on the job. 'We poke around the place, take a few measurements and figure out the best spots to stick all our equipment to monitor things.’

‘That's it?’

‘Well, yeah. For now. Unless you think whatever it is is just gonna knock on the front door and welcome us to the neighbourhood.’

She was about to remark that a little more research into the previous occupants wouldn't go astray when there was a loud rapping sound on the glass behind her. She jumped in fright at the sudden noise, trying and failing at the last second to maintain a hold on her mug, which went tumbling and smashed on the slate floor.

‘Iesu mawr,’ Ianto quietly swore, equally startled.

A face dressed all in black peered through the glass and Jack stood up. ‘Take it easy. It's just Father Michael come to check on us.’ He stood up and walked over to the back door in the kitchen, pulling it open.

‘Ah, I assumed that must be you with that big black car, Jack,’ Father Michael said. ‘I'm pleased you found the place okay.’

‘Good to see you, Father. And yeah, the satnav wasn't much use, but we made it.’

‘Mmm,’ he hummed, ‘phones and those sorts of things don't work so well out here. No reception. Without the landline in my office I would be completely incommunicado with the world.’

‘Not a bad way to be,’ Jack agreed. ‘Can I introduce you to my two trusty partners? This is Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones.’

Gwen offered her hand to the elderly man. He was just the sort of placid, church type that Gwen pictured from watching too many rural television shows. How he'd ever crossed paths with Jack was anybody's guess. ‘Nice to meet you.’

‘Why don't you two get started on getting the lie of the place and setting us up?’ Jack suggested. ‘Father Michael and I will take a walk and he can get me up to speed.’

Gwen exchanged a look with Ianto that very clearly stated “he goes off for a stroll while we do all the work”. The look she received back was that of “what else is new?”.

‘Come on then, Ianto,’ Gwen said, grabbing him by the elbow and leading them off before Jack could issue any more suggestions about how they should spend their time. They could at least walk out of there looking like it was a conscious decision. Bloody Jack.


	5. Chapter 5

Jack reached for his coat, which he'd left draped over the low table in the middle of the kitchen, slipping his arms into the sleeves and stepping out through the back door where Father Michael was waiting patiently for him. Jack gave him a brief smile as he pulled the door shut behind him.

‘It's good to see you again after so long,’ Father Michael said, resting a hand on his elbow.

‘Likewise. I'm glad you reached out.’

‘Call it a vested interest. I would rather this place didn't attract quite so much attention as it has of late.’ He began to wander along the gravel pathway that snaked from the back of the house, past the derelict vegetable garden and towards the grassy knoll and the small creek that ran beyond it. Jack could hear the gentle trickling of water.

Jack's brow furrowed at the statement. ‘You thinking of buying it and retiring?’

The cleric chuckled good-naturedly and folded his hands behind his back as he maintained a slow, steady pace. ‘Nothing of the kind. I have a lovely little cottage behind the church that suits me fine. A big place like this is far more than I need. I've merely been keeping an eye over it. Most of the locals won't go near the place or anyone who associates with it, but there have been a few who have tried to interfere and incur the wrath of whatever haunts this place.’

‘Interfere?’

‘Loot, I should say. It was just the other evening. I finished my rounds for the evening and decided to stop by and make sure the place was secure - no windows broken by devilish children throwing stones, or rats burrowing a way inside and nesting. I came by the back as always and found the door ajar. I went inside and was accosted by two brutish looking young men who had obviously come to relieve the house of valuable items, but they must have only just broken in as my arrival startled them, and they bolted, crowbar and all.’

Jack shook his head at the madness of it all. ‘You know, you're supposed to call the police when that happens. Not try and take down two guys with weapons. Especially at your age. You're not thirty anymore.’

Jack could tell his words did nothing to chastise the aging man. ‘Neither are you, but look at us both here now. To tell you the truth, their break-in did leave me a little shaken. This place has been on my mind a lot of late so I prayed and asked God what I should do about it. When I woke the next morning my first thought was of you.’

‘I don't know about answering anyone's prayers. Not those kind, in any case,’ he added, giving a cheeky chuckle.

‘Only our heavenly Father can know the truth of his intentions.’

Jack stared down at his feet and then followed the curve of the gravel path as it wound past some withered gourds, left to rot on their vines. All the gardens were overgrown with weeds and their plants left to go to seed or curl up their toes. As much as he didn't want to believe it, he could almost taste the foulness of death carried in on the breeze. Everything here was dead and dying in some way, abandoned and neglected. He could feel it drawing him towards it, like death could sense his undying immortality, looking for a way to taste that endless buffet of life. He shook the thought away, returning his gaze to the trees beyond. He was becoming paranoid about nothing.

‘Who was the man who lived here? The one who hung himself.'

Father Michael lifted his face up into the pale autumn sunshine as he pondered how best to answer Jack's question. Perhaps he was seeking guidance from above. ‘I don't know very much about him despite the years he spent here.’

‘He didn't attend church?’

‘No. I visited the house twice after he arrived to offer my words and comfort but on both occasions I was left hanging at the door. Not so much as a curtain twitch. I even wrote once, stating that he would always be welcome or that I could make a personal visit. All my attempts were rebuffed so I refrained from imposing myself further. Where he came from and how he spent his days in this old house I couldn't say, except to make the comment that the vegetable garden was magnificent. I suspect he desired self-sufficiency and solitude. I barely saw him pass through the town, once or twice to buy hardware supplies but never the local store.’

‘I doubt the locals were too keen on his attending church, either.’

‘The tail does not wag the dog, Jack. If I were beholden to my parishioners more than to God I should never achieve anything. But you are correct. His presence in Abercrafen was mostly felt through his complete absence. It made people suspicious about what he was doing up here. He had no friends here, and no one to mourn his passing. I could not say whether he was troubled before he arrived or whether living in this house drove him to take his life.’

‘But you still think the place is haunted.’

The cleric smiled. ‘I have seen too much in my life to discount anything at all. As have you. But I trust to God that he should watch over us all.’

Jack remembered those days as well, decades ago now, when both of them had been younger men, long before Elias Michael had given his entire life over to God and the church. 'I have seen too many things as well, Father,’ Jack confessed. ‘Too many indeed to believe that there is a God.’

Father Michael maintained his slow pace through the overgrown gardens. ‘That's where you and I differ. What we saw undermined your faith, but it only affirmed my own. There is much we cannot begin to understand. Only a higher power could master such a complex universe as that which we live in. My task is simply to live in the light of his creation and to provide a path for those to follow from this life to the next. That much at least I was able to do for him, giving his final soul over to God.’

Discussions of religion always made Jack feel uncomfortable. He’d believed in gods once upon a time, but very few had ever answered his prayers. He cleared his throat, keen to get back on topic. ‘If he was such a hermit, how did anyone know he was dead?’

‘He made a call to the local police station fifteen miles away. He told them he was planning to take his own life. By the time anyone took it seriously and drove out here to check, he'd already done it. I don't think he ever meant for them to do anything other than remove his body. Funny how people can be so courteous in the moments right before death, but not in life. Perhaps they mean to atone to God before the very end.’

Jack turned around and took in the house from where they stood. It looked over the landscape, set on the highest part of the low rolling hills. It was grey and green, ivy crawling over its lower reaches, as if nature were attempting to reclaim it. ‘You didn't poke around the place afterwards?’

‘I lack your youthful curiosity. Those who occupied its halls did not stay long enough to impart any useful insights. I am merely a servant of God. That is why I called you. Perhaps it is alien and perhaps not. Only a man who has faced death could know for certain.’

Jack set his hands on his hips and gave the cleric a thoughtful look. ‘Death and I are not friends.’ There were times when he tired of it, that endless dance they did without either of them ever engaging in battle.

Father Michael reached out resting a hand on Jack's shoulder. ‘Further proof that God has bigger plans for you.’


	6. Chapter 6

Ianto swatted somewhat uselessly at the hem of his jumper, dislodging the thick smear of dust. It wasn't the first time and it most definitely wouldn't be the last. The whole place was covered in an inch of dust and that was including the furniture already covered up with sheets.

‘I thought the hub was bad,’ he muttered to himself. It'd take a month of Sundays to wipe down everything. No wonder the Victorians all had maids.

He picked up the subatomic resonator off the threadbare carpet in the hallway and tried to settle on a spot for it. The sideboard had been a good candidate, but now that he tried to find space on it to put the ten square inch piece of alien technology, he realised there was none. It was already cluttered with every spare inch housing vases, painted plates on little stands, odd carved statues in black stone and ornate cut crystal bowls. Try as he might to rearrange them, there was no creating a space.

‘You can put some of that stuff in here, if you like,’ Gwen's voice called out to him. Her head poked out from a doorway just a little further down the hall of the eastern wing of the house. The dust covered hallway lights cast a muted glow over her face.

He gathered up a handful of items, leaving dust free outlines on the sideboard and carried them down the hall.

Gwen was in a tiny room with glass paneled double doors, perhaps six feet wide at most. The same red carpet with its baroque scrollwork stretched from the hallway and across the floor. A long desk ran the length of one wall and looked to be made from a single piece of timber, still rough and covered in its original bark at the edges. There was a single wooden chair and a small cabinet pushed up under the tall window which looked out onto the cottage garden. Opposite the desk was a wall made entirely of rows of books, exuding the scent of cracked leather and yellowing pages.

‘Nicer than my office,’ he remarked. 'With a bit of a clean and polish, of course.' There was only so much he could do to his space in the archives with its grey steel cabinets and shelves, ergonomic chair and computer, to make it feel more warm and inviting. A rug laid under the desk and a nice leather blotter on its surface was all he'd managed. Ideas about setting up a coffee table, sofa and a few pictures on the walls had never come to fruition.

He dropped his collection onto the desk even as Gwen was setting up a portable camera, fixing it in place and adjusting the angle to take in as much of the external view as possible. It was the only window facing east as they'd determined from their preliminary exploration of the house, and it had the added advantage of height being on the first floor. Other cameras had been set up in the master bedroom facing west, the first floor landing and the dining room, covering northerly and southerly positions. Just because people thought what they saw was happening inside the house didn't mean whatever it was didn't originally come from outside. It gave him some small amount of comfort to know that if anything approached the house, they'd be alerted to it.

‘Any sign of our fearless leader yet?’ he asked.

Gwen leaned closer to the window, peering out through it with her own eyes rather than the image feeding from the camera to her laptop. ‘They were headed back down the road we came up when we arrived, last I saw.’

Ianto rolled his eyes and returned to his task. That was just so typical of Jack. He always found a way to avoid the tedious work. And, he always knew someone that was somehow connected to any case they investigated. Ianto shouldn't be jealous. He should have gotten over all of that by now, but there was always a nagging sense that Jack knew more than he let on. Jack was accomplished at putting on a smile and a carefully placed “whoops” or “I didn't know, I swear”. Playing dumb was one of Jack's many faces, and one of his favourites. Everyone underestimated a man who appeared incompetent or foolish. He had his moments of genuine stupidity, but he was far cleverer than anyone ever gave him credit. It was dangerous to think Jack was anything less.

But when it came to matters of the heart, Ianto was convinced that Jack was as useless as the rest of them. He seemed oblivious to the feelings of others at times, especially Ianto himself. He set the resonator on the new space he'd created and heaved a sigh. Jack's old flames were always getting dragged into Torchwood business, and not always for the first time. Jack rarely ever offered up much detail about how he'd know them, or what the extent their relationship had been. It didn't make Ianto half wonder if he wasn't just the same as them, a flash in the pan for someone like Jack. Someone who might, in a few decades, when he was old and grey, get sucked back into Jack's orbit for a brief moment in time. Who would stand in Ianto's shoes, he wondered, the new young lover who was equally jealous of Ianto and whatever intimacy he'd once shared with Jack.

He flipped the switch on the device, making sure it was working to his satisfaction. Don't think about it too much, he told himself. Whatever fling Jack had with the old priest was long in the past.

‘Ianto, do we have any gaffer tape?’

He dusted off his hands, giving them a quick brush down his jeans. ‘There should be some in the SUV. I'll go take a look.’

‘I can get it,’ Gwen insisted.

‘Nope. It's fine. It's on my way.’

He proceeded back down the hall, past the secondary bedroom which took up the back corner of the house and turned right, stepping out onto the landing. The waning afternoon light played through the large windows, throwing its light out and across the landing and down to the foyer below. The wooden floorboards underneath the runner carpets creaked and groaned with his footfalls. It wasn't until he reached the far side of the landing, and began descending the long stairs, that he spotted Jack standing in the foyer, looking up at the landing where he'd just passed.

‘You're back,’ Ianto said as he glided down the stairs. ‘How'd it go?’ Jack didn't seem to hear him, or was otherwise being ignored. He rounded the banister at the end where it ended and walked over. ‘Jack?’

There was no blink of surprise at Ianto's sudden presence, which only proved he'd been intentionally ignored. ‘This is where he hung himself,’ Jack said.

‘Father Michael told you that?’

‘No. I just… it's like a feeling I got when I stood here. Cold. Like I couldn't breathe for a second.’

‘Your imagination running away with you,’ Ianto told him. Jack did enjoy a little bit of melodrama. He stared up at the landing and the thick wooden balustrade. ‘I suppose it would work,’ he agreed. Tie the rope around enough of them so they didn't just snap the minute they took your weight. Decent height too. Probably snap your neck in a heartbeat rather than leave you to choke to death. Whatever Jack thought he imagined standing here under this particular spot didn't translate. Ianto didn't feel any different here to anywhere else. The whole house was cold and derelict.

‘Jack?’ He snapped his fingers in front of Jack's face. He was staring off into nothingness. This time Jack did blink and come back to himself.

He smiled at Ianto. ‘All done setting up?’

‘Almost. What about you? You were gone ages. Find out anything helpful?’

‘We walked all the way back to Father Michael's church. Relived the old days and caught up on more recent times.’

When Jack didn't offer up anything else Ianto knew not to press him. They had barely discussed the matter at hand, that much he could tell.

Creaking overhead drew both their attention as footsteps moved across the landing. Gwen's head peered over the balustrade. ‘Never mind about the tape, Ianto. I used a few of those old books to prop it up and keep it in place. Ah, I see you've found Jack. Perfect timing as always.’

Ianto smirked at Jack's feigned expression of innocence. ‘It was four miles back to the church. That's an eight mile round trip. My feet are killing me.’

Gwen came downstairs to join them. ‘Well then, you won't mind parking yourself in front of the laptop to start running some analysis, will you? Since we did all the legwork in here.’

‘And you haven't found anything yet?’

‘I checked under the bed and in the closets but there were no aliens hiding there. Sorry. Guess they're shy.’

Jack's phone began to trill in his coat pocket and Gwen rolled her eyes. ‘That'd be right. I haven't been able to get a bar of signal out here but you've got incoming.’

Jack groaned as the phone number came up on the display. ‘Urgh. It's that Minister for Home Affairs, Margaret What's Her Name.’

‘Enfield,’ Ianto replied. ‘You'd better take that. She'll only get really pissed if you keep ignoring her.’ As if she wasn't already if she was calling him direct. She'd tried the hub three times this week already and Jack had made an excuse every single time - delivered of course though his ever reliable assistant, diplomatic translator and phone answerer, Ianto.

Jack made a vexed sound in the back of his throat. ‘Unbelievable. No phone reception out here but somehow the devil has found a way to get through.’

Ianto didn't bother to suppress his smile. ‘If that's not paranormal intervention, I don't know what is.’

Jack gave him an unimpressed look. ‘Okay, but if I take this call, you get to search around the property.’

‘Agreed,’ Gwen quickly replied. She grabbed Ianto by the arm. ‘Come on, you. You're coming with me.’

‘Why?’

‘Fresh air.’

He sighed. ‘Great. Love fresh air. Just not sure my shoes will love it.’


	7. Chapter 7

If she was honest with herself, Gwen was glad to get out of the house. Not because she thought the place was harboring the undead, just because it was old and smelled old and was just generally dreary even if the furniture was fancy. The house itself was what felt dead more than anything else. It needed some softer furniture in lighter colours, less pictures covering every spare inch of wall with dour looking Victorians and bleak landscapes, more light and a handful of children running around.

Just the thought of children filled her with a little flurry of happiness. She couldn't wait for the day when her own house was filled with that sound. Not that she and Rhys hadn't been trying, or at least practicing, but it was hard to get in the mood when on your one night off, all you really wanted to do was have a glass of wine, watch some mindless telly and then turn in early to catch up on the rest of the week's worth of sleep.

She could just picture the look of horror on Rhys’ face if she suggested they move up here into a nice big country house. “What, you spending all day tending roses and popping out kids?” he'd probably say. “A bit of a leap from running around Cardiff, gun in hand, chasing aliens and saving the world. If we can't get Match of the Day up here, count me out, Gwen.”

She wandered out beyond the low cobblestone fence that ran behind the back of the house, interspersed with dead and dying flowerbeds, wild lavender and tall grasses. She didn't much care for a jaunt down along by the creek that hugged the property boundaries or the tall forest trees that sheltered it. Rumours of a haunted house that had bodies buried out beyond it were the sole focus of her interest.

A breeze whipped through and a metal clank from the weather vane on the roof diverted her attention for a brief moment as it changed direction on rusting hinges and then righted itself.

‘What kind of country house has its own graveyard? Churches yes, particularly out in rural places like this, but not your normal house.’

‘The creepy kind,’ Ianto grumbled, two steps behind her.

She suppressed a smile at his mood. He'd been far happier inside satisfying a compulsive need to put things in order. She on the other hand, was itching to get out and get stuck into the investigation. It was mildly annoying that Jack hadn't let either of them be party to his conversation with Father Michael, or the general upshot of it. Even more so that they couldn't question anyone else on the matter. What had people really seen or heard? What clues were hidden away in their testimony? Perhaps the whole thing was complete nonsense, driven by overactive imaginations and the feel of the place.

She stepped down the sloping ground, edging closer to the headstones closest to the house. She wanted names and dates that she could go back inside and research. Somewhere out here just had to be a clue.

‘I still don't know what Jack's fixation with this is,’ Ianto said.

Gwen knelt down and began tugging away at the grass which obscured the lichen covered markings. ‘Oh, you know Jack,’ she said with an air of nonchalance, sweeping a hand over the stone and pulling out her phone to take a snapshot. ‘There hasn't been a decent interesting case for a few weeks and he gets restless. Anything for a bit of excitement.’

‘Yeah, like we don't get enough of that in our lives.’ Ianto pulled his own phone out and took pictures of some of the lesser overgrown headstones. Was it just her imagination or was he avoiding any that needed to be touched or the bracken and grass cleared away from them?

Gwen wrapped a fist around a large tuft of dandelion, tugging at it sharply. The headstone had no name, but was instead on a stone lodged in the earth at its base, now covered in weeds. She imagined doing the same to Jack so that she could get some semblance of truth out of him, buried under all the bluster and showmanship. ‘You get the feeling like…’

‘…like he's not telling you everything?’ Ianto finished for her. ‘What else is new? I don't know why this case has him so drawn in, though. It's different. I don't even think he knows what he's not telling us.’

She brushed the hair from her face and looked up at him. ‘And that's supposed to make sense?’

‘I didn't say it makes sense. It's just Jack. When he knows more than he's letting on he's usually more evasive, more smiles, more change the subject on you by starting on some outlandish story of something that happened a century ago.’

She knew that all too well. That was Jack Harkness through and through. Bloody infuriating. ‘Are you becoming a Jack whisperer?’ she teased.

He snorted. ‘Hardly. I just get the sense he doesn't really know why he's here.’ He clicked a few more photos and stepped over a cracked and broken stone, avoiding it completely. She followed him, seeing it had fallen face down. Without hesitation she forced her fingertips underneath it, wedging them in the dirt and pulling it back up. The words marked on it were crusted with dirt and she scraped it away, lodging more dirt under her fingernails.

‘Get a picture, would you?’ she asked, still holding the heavy stone up long enough before setting it back down where it had been. ‘Maybe we're overthinking this. Maybe it really is just an email from an old friend to have a bit of a poke around a house that is more legend than actual truth.’

‘You're probably right.’

She did her best to try and lighten the mood as they continued the task. There were maybe two dozen graves here and it wouldn't take long to document them all. None of them were less than a hundred years old, most dating from the 1800’s. Probably everyone who'd ever lived here. She doubted the records would be much good, if they existed at all. Perhaps Jack would bring something back, or they could find out where the local parish records were being stored and go through them.

She stood back up and stretched out her spine. The woods were beginning to encroach on this edge of the graveyard and she noticed one of the trees had names carved into it. She ran her fingers over the ancient letters, weather worn but still able to read them. G. R. heart J. H. Did lovers still do that anymore, carve their initials into trees? It felt like vandalism rather than an act of devotion. ‘So, what do you think?’ she asked Ianto. ‘Father Michael. Ex lover?’

The look he gave her bordered on incredulous for its brazen disregard for his personal feelings. ‘Takes one to know one, is that it?’

She shrugged off the question as if it wasn't half obvious. If anyone was going to be hypersensitive to Jack's demeanor at the sudden introduction of a new player, it was his current lover. Ianto was, from what she'd seen so far, the incredibly jealous type, even if he staunchly denied it.

He dropped to his haunches beside the headstone and let the camera adjust focus. ‘Then no. I don't think so. Jack might have been quick to usher him out the door and out of sight but I didn't get the vibe.’

‘Vibe?’

‘Guilt, usually,’ he clarified. ‘Regret sometimes. Pain when things have ended badly, or perhaps they left him. You can see it in his eyes, the way he clenches his jaw, whether he sets his hands in his pockets or folds them across his chest.’

Gwen could scarcely believe Ianto had all of that figured out in just a few seconds of meeting someone from Jack's often chequered past but she let it slide. It was just his way of dealing with it. She knew there was only one way it would end between them and that was death. Ianto wouldn't be coming back to haunt Jack. Perhaps that was grim but she knew Ianto wouldn't walk away from Jack. Not ever.

‘So, which did you see?’

He stood back up and cast his gaze around the yard. She tried to follow his line of sight but it didn't stay anywhere in particular. ‘Relief. He's seen what Torchwood is and lived to tell the tale.’ He wandered off on her without saying anything else. She followed after him as he moved further towards the trees.

‘There's one over here,’ he called back, pointing at the shallow grave marker. He was right. It was nowhere near the others and the grass around it much shorter. ‘It's recent.’

‘Really?’ She was skeptical. ‘All these are a hundred years old or more.’

‘Nope. This one is dated last year. Thomas Morgan. Do you think he was the one that hung himself?’

She pulled a face. ‘And chose to be buried here? Lovely.’

‘Maybe he didn't choose. Maybe the locals didn't want him buried in the local parish graveyard.’

‘Why not?’

He set his phone back in his pocket. ‘Small community. People get twitchy about things like suicide. Probably given a wide berth to everyone who's ever lived here. Bet you have to drive all the way to the next town just to buy groceries because the locals won't serve you. Nothing like a good rumor to get a whole town talking about it.’

She leaned her elbows on her legs as she squatted by the grave. ‘Poor fellow. Maybe he was strange or maybe he was just lonely. Either way, it couldn't be easy having a whole town treat you like that.’ She smiled. ‘Makes you glad to live in the big dirty city, doesn't it?’

‘I count myself fortunate every time I walk through Tesco's double doors.’

‘Oi!’ Jack called out from the kitchen door. ‘You two going to stay out there all night and freeze to death?’

Ianto reached out a hand and helped Gwen back to her feet, her knees refusing to cooperate. You're getting old, Gwen. Knees go first. Isn't that what Rhys was always complaining about? That and his back.

‘Want to go find out what Tesco brought us that we can be grateful for?’ Ianto asked.


	8. Chapter 8

Jack's two teammates were chilled to the bone when they climbed back up the hill and in through the kitchen door. Their faces were pale and a little flushed from the cold air that nipped at their cheekbones, and their hands were covered in dirt.

‘Do I have to dress you kids in your coats and scarves before letting you outside to play from now on?’ They ignored his clumsy attempts to mask the fact that once again, they'd done most, if not all, of the leg work. Jack had set up his laptop in the sitting room on the table, and it was happily feeding in data from all of their equipment, even if none of it was showing signs of any alien activity yet. They were good, his team, well versed in what should go where. A quick reconnaissance of the house told him everything was exactly where he would have put it.

‘Go wash up,’ he said, like he was talking to a pair of children and not his two very capable field agents. They trudged past him, across the foyer and up the stairs to the bathroom.

By the time they were done, scrubbing the dirt out from under their fingernails and wiping the dust from their faces, Jack had the table set and ready for them. It was lucky because they looked ravenous and he realised all of them had skipped lunch, his own stomach growling as he set the last bowl on the table.

‘You're not pulling out the fine China and crystal in the main dining room for us?’ Gwen asked, a teasing smile pulling at the edge of her mouth.

‘A big candlelit affair seemed overkill.’

‘I don't recall seeing a lamb roast and potatoes in those shopping bags,’ Ianto said, trying to get a rise out of Jack. ‘Is this the entrée?’

‘I made soup. It's entrée and main.’

‘It came out of a can and you warmed it up. Does that even count as making dinner?’

Jack pulled a chair out, emphasising that they should sit and stop talking. ‘I made dinner. Stop complaining. There's bread and butter.’

Ianto pulled out his own chair before Jack could be chivalrous and do it for him. ‘If you'd bought cheese I could have made toasties.’

‘I brought coffee. You can fuss over that to your heart’s content.’ Why couldn't Ianto just let him cook for once? Okay, so maybe this wasn't cooking exactly. He did owe the young man his century old, world famous lasagne recipe, picked up from his time sharing an apartment block in New York with a whole mob of Italian migrants back in the 1920’s. Those Nonnas really knew how to cook, and couldn't resist taking Jack under their wing, spoiling him like any other young man. The difference was that he was no mama’s boy.

Gwen slid down into the chair and began scooping. At least someone appreciated his efforts. What were they expecting out here in the middle of nowhere? It wasn't like they were staying more than a day or two. He'd bought basic provisions: bread, milk, peanut butter for having on toast for breakfast, tins of soup. What more did they want? Bacon and eggs? Spag bol? Salmon en papillote?

He began on his own bowl of soup once he saw Ianto pulling apart the crusty bread roll, chewing it slowly in little nibbles. He resisted the urge to reach across and pat Ianto on the head, saying “good boy”. He wasn't a fussy eater, he was just Ianto.

Jack bit deep into his own buttered roll, chewing far louder. ‘So, how was it? Did you find anything useful outside?’

Gwen set her spoon down. ‘Just the usual. Quaint country house stuck in the middle of nowhere. Trees, small creek, own personal graveyard... you know…’

‘Nice if what you like is a creepy sense of dread,’ Ianto added.

Jack shook his head. ‘Don't you start. Like I said, there's nothing here but some alien tech causing people to think the place is haunted. It isn't actually.’

‘Tell that to the creepy sense of dread.’

Jack resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Ianto read way too many of those James Herbert books. ‘The hub would be creepy if it was empty, you know, and that doesn't bother you. In fact, those archives are downright spooky.’

He bristled. ‘There's nothing wrong with my archives. The darkness helps preserve everything.’

‘We can go through the list of deceased outside,’ Gwen said, changing the subject. ‘Ianto and I got pictures of all the headstones.’ She always managed to pick a moment right when he and Ianto were about to get into it. Nothing relationship ending, just their usual banter. Spoilsport. It was almost like she didn't enjoy watching, which of course was an outrageous lie.

‘Sure,’ Jack said, not wanting to rain on her parade. Once a police officer, always a police officer. She didn't like to leave any stone unturned. Jack on the other hand didn't think there was anything a bunch of ancient rotting corpses was going to tell them. They were all long dead. ‘I don't know how good the records are but you can try.’

‘I wasn't exactly asking for permission.’

Jack chuckled. ‘Okay, no need to get bossy. Ianto, I think she likes pushing us around. What do you think?’

He dabbed delicately with his bread at the small pool of soup left in the bottom of his bowl. That it had disappeared so quickly surprised Jack. ‘I think the pot should say hello to the kettle. The only one who never gets to be bossy around here is me.’

‘You say that now, but I dare you to repeat it when you next barge into my office with a two foot tall stack of files to sign off.’

‘Well, if you didn't keep putting off doing them, the pile wouldn't get so big.’

‘Sounds bossy to me. Besides, there's always more fun things to do than paperwork.’

‘Yeah. Like bossing me into the storage closet and-’

‘Please stop!’ Gwen begged. She was trying desperately hard not to blush at the obvious mental images rolling around inside her head. They were good images in Jack's opinion. He should know. He'd been there. What was the point of being the boss if he didn't occasionally exercise his right to take charge? And he really did love it when Ianto called him Sir.

‘See?’ Ianto grumbled. ‘Bossy. Both of you.’

Jack's smile dipped all the way down into his bowl of soup. Maybe later if things were quiet he might find a way to repay Ianto's servitude with a little role reversal. If he was going to let anyone dominate him, he knew Ianto would be the perfect taskmaster. He'd happily take whatever punishment was deemed appropriate.


	9. Chapter 9

By the time they'd cleared up their dinner plates, Gwen still had a gnawing emptiness in her stomach that hadn't been satisfied by the meager offering of tinned soup and bread rolls, even if the soup hadn't been half bad, with lots of chunky vegetables in it, almost qualifying it as a minestrone like it said on the can.

She'd ended up doing most of the washing up herself. Jack had offered to dry the dishes, but within minutes, he was naughtily flicking the towel at Ianto as he passed, which of course had descended into a tit for tat that ended with Jack chasing Ianto around the kitchen, and then out into the house at large, still armed with his tea towel.

Gwen sighed. Was this what it would be like to have children? Would she spend her whole day acting as arbiter between their quarrels? The thought of a house full of prepubescent boys filled her mind and she shuddered. Rhys would love it of course. Half a rugby team, enough to man a five on five football squad, and more dirty laundry and empty fridges than Gwen could imagine being able to cope with. Maybe just the one child. Two maximum. They'd stop after two, wouldn't they?

Setting the last of the plates in the cupboard and drying off her hands, she peered out through the now darkened kitchen windows. It was almost impossible to see anything out there. If she tried hard, she could just make out the top of the low cobblestone fence that divided the immediate gardens from the graveyard beyond. For just a split second she thought she saw something bright flit between the shadows beyond the cobblestones and then blinked again, realising it was probably just the reflections of the lights in the house bouncing off the glass. This place would get to you if you let it. No wonder people thought it was haunted.

The gnawing sensation in her stomach came back. She rummaged through their bags of supplies and found the remaining half packet of biscuits, taking two and scoffing them. She chewed them whilst staring out through the window, just to be doubly sure she had imagined seeing anything out there. It was so quiet in the house, Jack and Ianto's messing around having descended into silence as well. Probably snogging the life out of one another, she thought, knowing those two. Any excuse for a snog.

A chill breeze rippled up the back of her spine and she shivered. It was coming from the wrong direction to be a draught slipping in under the kitchen door. She looked around the long narrow kitchen, spotting the dark entrance down to the cellar and boiler. It must have been coming in from there. She walked over and stood at the threshold. There were no lights down there, just a set of steep and narrow rough stone steps, leading away into the darkness. Another wisp of cool air hit her in the face, confirming it was coming in from down there and she pulled the door shut, sealing the cold air inside before leaving the kitchen.

Passing through the breakfast parlour and to the main foyer, she admired the view from the tall windows that looked out over the back of the property. The view was much better than that from the pokey kitchen windows, these ones large enough to show off the night sky. There was no moon but it was bright and clear, dotted with a thousand stars.

Now where had those two got to? she wondered. She crossed the wide parquet floors, heading for the sitting room where Jack had left their laptops to monitor the equipment they'd fixed around the house. It didn't take her long to find them, casting her gaze left and seeing them halfway up the long wide staircase. Jack had Ianto pressed up against the wall. To be precise, against a low hanging and rather hideous portrait of some old bag who would have been the nightmare aunt from some drab Jane Austen romance novel. Ianto didn't seem to mind however, his hand cupped rather comfortably around Jack's arse. Their faces were mashed together so close that Gwen couldn't tell which of them had their tongue down the other's throat, or perhaps they both did. Aunty wouldn't have approved.

Gwen coughed loudly, coming to stand at the bottom of the stairs.

Jack pulled away and looked not the least bit surprised by the interruption. ‘Yeah?’

‘I was wanting Ianto, actually.’

His hand was still resting on Jack’s hip, at least having migrated slightly north from where it had been. ‘Me?’

Jack sniggered. 'Who wouldn’t? I’m afraid you’ll have to take a ticket though, Gwen. I got here first.’

Gwen bit down on her vexed sigh. ‘I only need your phone. So I can download those pictures. Unless of course you'd like me to go wandering out there in the dark with my flashlight to get that list of names again?’

At least Ianto attempted to look contrite, pulling his phone from his pocket even whilst Jack still had his own hand resting on Ianto's hip, hindering his efforts.

Gwen climbed the stairs and took it. ‘I'll just start on these. You two carry on. Don't let me, or the investigation, get in the way.’

‘We won't be too long,’ Jack promised her with one of those cheeky smiles, going back in for the kill.

Gwen rolled her eyes. There was really nothing left to say. What Jack wanted, Jack got, and when his mind wasn't on the investigation, there wasn't much going to change that. She supposed she at least had some demarcation in her life between work and romance. She couldn't say the same for them. ‘Make yourselves at home,’ she muttered under her breath.

She drifted back across the foyer and into the sitting room. There was a good fire going in the large hearth at the far end of the room now. Even the tall exposed beam roof was unable to draw away all of the heat up into its lofty heights. To their credit they'd done a good job of making the room cosy and inviting. If you ignored the smell of mustiness and the outdated depictions of horses and hunting dogs done in oil hanging from every wall, it was almost homely.

She ran a cable from Ianto's phone to her laptop, downloading the images and then doing the same with her own phone. Once the images were all on there, she picked up the laptop and carried it over to the large leather armchair closest to the fire and settled herself in it. Where the rest of the house had a perpetual chill about it, now she could feel the radiant heat warming her from top to toe. She curled her legs under her and went to work.

Her first search was for the last occupant of the house. She was intensely curious about the what the police had to say about the tragic suicide. She typed in the name and found the local police report, but frowned as she read through the contents. There was no date of birth, no previous address before moving here to Abercrafen, no known relatives. Nothing. It was as if the police had no idea who he'd been. It struck her as odd, or perhaps just poor investigation on their part. Maybe nobody cared about one sad hermit. Her former colleagues had always said that rural police forces weren't a patch on their metropolitan counterparts, mostly just going there for the quiet life and a way to bide their time until pension age.

She widened her search to Wales Births, Deaths and Marriages records, and whilst there were several listings, none matched the approximate age or location. Frustrated, she knew that tomorrow she'd be putting in a call to the local police station to get a few answers. She might even give them a lesson in how real policing work was done.

‘Anything to report?’ Jack asked, stepping into the room and making himself at home on the far end of the long leather sofa, furthest from her, but closest to the coffee table where his own laptop had been abandoned. Ianto slinked in silently behind him, taking up a spot next to him.

‘Good of you to join me,’ Gwen quipped. ‘Done already?’ She didn't really want to know but it was hard to break the habit of asking.

Jack's shrug was noncommittal. ‘Couldn't convince Ianto here to test out that lovely king-size poster bed.’

Ianto reached over him to take the laptop in hand, setting it on his lap. ‘I believe it was Gwen who pointed out that we came here for business, not pleasure.’

‘I never said we couldn't do both. Speaking of, any chance of some coffee before we settle in?’ Gwen couldn't help but give Ianto a confirmatory look. It was beneath her to ask outright, but she was happy to lend support to Jack's idea.

There was a sigh and a keenly anticipated rolling of eyes. The laptop was passed from Ianto to Jack and he left the room without another word. Gwen's eyes followed him the entire way.

‘Do you ever get the feeling that one day we're going to rue our demands?’

Jack smirked, easing back into the stiff leather. ‘It'll be worth it.’


	10. Chapter 10

‘One of these days...’ Ianto muttered with a small amount of well-meaning bitterness. When he was in charge of Torchwood he was going to make sure he capitalised on every opportunity to have either Gwen or Jack do his dirty and menial work, just to see how they liked it. He was capable of far more than just making coffee and snogging the boss, even if he excelled in both, in his own humble opinion.

It was of course madness to think of himself ever being in charge. Jack was immortal and wasn't going anywhere. Even if he did tire of the responsibility and the endless red tape, life threatening danger and heartbreaking decisions that the job entailed, Gwen was surely next in line to take over the mantle. She had that sort of commanding presence needed for leadership. If he had to step up, he probably could. He'd been in plenty of scrapes in this job, having to tell other people what to do in a crisis - even if most of those people had been innocent bystanders. So long as nobody ever found out what a pushover he was when faced with his sister, everything would be just fine. For now though, he'd just have to content himself with making the best damn coffee on the planet.

He grabbed the empty kettle off the stove top and walked it over to the sink, filling it and setting it back on the stove. He was going to need more wood to get it going again and knew they'd left a few spare chocks in a metal basket down in the cellar next to the boiler. He didn't want to have to go outside and fetch more from the pile by the side of the house.

The door down to the cellar was hanging open, even though he was sure he'd shut it earlier. He fumbled in the semi-dark, knowing there was a chain just inside the door, wrapped a hand around it and gave it a tug. A single light bulb hanging over the stairs came on, lighting the way down.

It wasn't much of a cellar, he'd decided. For one, it didn't host any bottles of wine or other vintage bootlegged moonshine of any description. He somehow imagined that a man living here on his own for years, with his own edible garden outside, would be just the sort of dab hand at concocting his own alcohol and jars of preserve. It would certainly help pass the time, both the making and the drinking.

Mostly, the space down here was dusty and full of cobwebs, and stacked with old broken furniture that nobody could find the time or inclination to repair. The boiler sat in the far corner, underneath a tiny window that poked up above ground level for just a few inches to let in light during the day.

As he approached the small bin of kindling he noticed that the boiler, whilst making an assured sound of burning, was emanating very little heat. It should have been positively toasty down here and yet it was as cold, if not colder, than the rest of the house. It needed more wood, that was all. After being off for so long it was no doubt chewing through fuel just to get everything heated back up. He tugged open the flap and pushed a few more solid looking woodblocks inside, leaving the smaller ones for the stove. This place wasn't so bad, really. Run down for sure, a little too empty, and a little too much morbid artwork that needed to be removed. You might even get used to the idea of having a cemetery in your backyard. A place one might retire to if they survived Torchwood to pension age.

He bundled the wood in his arms and headed up the steps. At the top the door was shut again even though he'd left it open. There was a fleeting sense of panic, thinking he'd been shut in, but when he pulled at the edge which actually wasn't shut all the way, it came open easily. Just a wayward draught tugging it open and shut of its own accord. A simple doorstop would have fixed that. He pulled it back shut behind him and worked on getting the stove lit.

It wasn't Torchwood coffee of the standard he was accustomed to producing, since it lacked the proper machine to get the water to just the right temperature and to froth the milk, but the beans were still good and even longlife milk couldn't ruin it too badly.

‘I thought we were going to have to send out the Welsh Twelfth Regiment to look for you,’ Jack teased when he finally returned.

‘Great things take time,’ he said, carrying in the first two mugs and setting each down by its respective owner.

‘Thank you, sweetheart,’ Gwen said, cupping the mug gratefully. At least someone appreciated him. He never got a “thank you, sweetheart” from Jack. Although Jack did have more inventive ways of showing his gratitude… when it suited him, of course. There were no pet names however, unless he counted “sexy” and “gorgeous”. Hell would have to freeze over before he heard Jack say something like “honey, do you remember where I left the car keys?” And Jack was forever misplacing the car keys.

Ianto retrieved the last mug and the packet of biscuits, carrying them out and settling himself back down on the sofa next to Jack. ‘Did I miss anything while I was gone?’

Jack reached over and immediately relieved Ianto of the packet of biscuits. 'Just Gwen trying to shake the corporate equipment apart. You break it, you bought it,’ he warned her.

‘Well, maybe I wouldn't have to if we could get some bloody internet out here.’ There was a heavy sigh of annoyance. ‘Top of the range and able to connect to just about anywhere on the planet and I can barely get five minutes of signal. Are we sure there's not a black hole hiding out here somewhere that we missed?’

Ianto smirked over the rim of his mug. ‘It's rural Wales. That's pretty much the definition of a black hole.’ National pride only stretched so far. Basic human rights such as good coffee and a half decent internet connection trumped most Welsh allegiances. ‘Any serial killers buried out in the backyard we should know about?’

Gwen readjusted the laptop. ‘I couldn't find much at all to be fair. Most of it says “digital records not available”. I presume that means they're all still in a box somewhere in good old fashioned paper and ink. A few bits and pieces from old newspapers and local council permits, but that's it.’

He was quietly relieved that Gwen's search turned up nothing on the people who were buried out behind the house. It was unsurprising yet it gave him some comfort. There really wasn't anything out here, no disturbed spirits from long ago. Perhaps it really was just a case of eating the mushrooms out in the garden that they shouldn't.

‘D'you know what's weird?’ Gwen asked, balancing coffee and computer simultaneously.

‘Ladies who still think perms are fashionable?’ Jack offered, casting his gaze up at some of the ghastly hairdos on the women in the portraits hanging on the wall.

There was a toothy smile. ‘Apart from that.’ She turned her attention back to Ianto. ‘The man who killed himself? Thomas Morgan? I can't find anything. No death certificate, no will, not even a mention in the local papers. It's like they didn't want him to exist.’

‘They probably didn't. Just more strange happenings in a house that nobody in the town wanted to own up to. The less said the better. What about our equipment? Anything yet?’

Jack looked equal parts bored and disappointed. ‘Not so much as a quark out of place.’

‘So, not a single lead on what might be happening here.’ Was it too much to hope that it was just creaking floorboards or draughts caused by gaps in the brickwork? Subsidence had always been Jack's go to explanation for things.

‘I'm going into town tomorrow,’ Gwen declared. ‘I want to see what records they've got for the people who lived here. The digital archives are almost nonexistent, but someone around here must have a paper trail for the people that have lived in this town.’

Jack nodded. ‘Father Michael should be able to help us on that front. If there's anything in the old parish records he should know where they're kept. I'm starting to wonder if you're not right that there's something more going on. I would have thought that by now our equipment should have picked up something. We should take it out further afield tomorrow, see if we can't get a bead on whatever is lurking around here. Could be it's not actually in the house but only comes to visit.’

‘There's woodland and rolling hills for miles,’ Ianto observed. ‘Anything could be out there.’

Jack nodded. ‘Exactly. First we confirm there's nothing in here to account for it, then we start looking outside.’

‘Should've packed my hiking boots.’ Cannibals in the countryside were a distant memory yet one that refused to budge from his consciousness. That was something he wasn't keen to repeat. This time he'd shoot first and ask questions later.


	11. Chapter 11

Gwen looked bored as Jack stared across the room at her. With no further leads to follow on her graveyard full of dead souls until the morning, she looked without purpose. Idle hands are the Devil's playthings, as the old saying went.

‘Why don't you turn in for the night, Gwen Cooper. There's nothing much happening here. Take the master bedroom.’

She raised an eye at him, like she was searching his face for some ulterior motive. ‘What about you two?’ Her question left no doubt in his mind that she assumed this was just some ploy to get rid of her so that they could pick up where they'd left off earlier. Would that it were that simple. For all his aloofness, Ianto could be a slippery customer.

‘Ianto can take the other bedroom. I'll stay here and keep an eye on the equipment overnight.’ He didn't mind doing so, either. He couldn't quite put his finger on what it was that bothered him, but he was sure if he stuck it out long enough, it would make itself apparent. That was the problem with having lived so long. Memories faded or blurred until some disappeared from his recollections altogether and others jumbled themselves into a tangled mess, like balls of yarn. Perhaps once the others were asleep he could take a walk outside to clear his head and check around the house. Maybe his vortex manipulator would pick up something their other equipment couldn't.

Ianto shook his head defiantly at Jack. ‘Oh, no. I'm not staying in that room. I don't care how fancy the bed is.’

‘Me either,’ Gwen agreed. ‘This place is freaky enough without spending time alone in a room by ourselves. And it'll be freezing up there. If you're staying here then that's where we're staying.’

Their opposition caught Jack off guard. These were people who had faced down deadly alien threats, put their lives on the line knowing what they had signed up for, but a big empty house had them clinging to each other for company. Maybe Jack wasn't the only one holding to closely guarded reservations. He did his best to play down any concerns. Fear was more contagious than anything. Instincts said one thing but their collective misgivings had them jumping at shadows.

‘I warn you, these chairs are solid leather and brass. Not exactly made for comfort.’

‘Don't care,’ came the blunt response from Ianto. ‘We'll steal the blankets and pillows, but I'm camping down here.’

And that was what they did, stripping down the bed of its jacquard and wool, pillows and cushions, carrying them downstairs. Gwen sat sideways in the wide armchair, letting her legs dangle over the side and laying the blanket over them. Ianto's blanket remained neatly folded on the end of the sofa, satisfied for the moment with staying awake and the warmth emanating from the fireplace.

Jack scrolled silently through the CCTV feeds from around the property. The only sounds punctuating the silence were the crackle of burning logs, the rustle of paper and the ticking of a large clock on the mantle that had incredibly kept perfect time despite the place being neglected for so long.

‘All this furniture and no TV,’ Ianto moped after a while.

‘Told you to always carry a book,' Gwen said, resting it up against her knees tucked under the blanket. She'd extracted a dog-eared paperback from her handbag and had picked up from where she'd last left off. Frantic as Torchwood often was, there were also long periods of waiting. Gwen had devoured the entire Da Vinci Code one night whilst Jack was diving in the bay, trying to convince an alien octopus that the waters off Norway were a lovely spot to take up residence. She'd actually shushed him even as he was dragging himself back over the side of their boat the following morning, exhausted and waterlogged, making him wait until she'd read the last three pages and then declared it was absolute rubbish and how had he gotten on?

‘I think I saw some books upstairs,’ Jack said. ‘There was a study up there, wasn't there?’

‘I'm good.’

A smile broke out on Jack's face at the terse response. ‘Scared to go up there and pick out a book?’ Jack teased. ‘I could go up there and pick one out for you.’

Ianto sat up straighter on the sofa. ‘On second thoughts, maybe I will go.’

Jack's reverse psychology worked a treat on Ianto. It was almost cruel to employ such a simple yet effective technique on such a highly intelligent man. ‘Has my dashing and heroic bravery stoked your resolve?’

‘No, I'm just worried that if I let you pick a book I'll end up with something horribly tiresome, like Proust.’

‘Hey, I never read Proust. He was a total jerk. Just listening to him would kill you.’ It hadn't exactly killed him, but he'd considered taking his own life several times just to end the misery of having to listen to him blather on about the drab injustices of his life. It was a pity he was such a good shag or Jack might have ended it far sooner than he had.

‘But the sex was good enough for you to carry on anyway.’

Jack was about to say something then paused and reconsidered. Gwen raised an eye, breaking from her book to bear witness to Jack's response. They both seemed to know what came next. There were times when he really wondered if he was that completely transparent. ‘I never said I was proud of it.’

‘As good an admission as any,’ Ianto replied, pushing off the sofa and disappearing towards the heavy stone staircase. He might have expected Ianto to agonise over a selection, but he returned almost as quickly as he'd left. Jack half wondered if he'd just grabbed the first book he found and hightailed it out of there. When he spied the title he almost burst out laughing. 'The Hound of Baskerville' was a strangely morbid choice, given their assignment. Ianto rearranged the cushions so that he was nestled sideways against Jack and settled in.

Jack was meant to be monitoring the output of the two dozen devices they had planted around the house from his laptop, resting open on the low mahogany table in front of him. Instead he found himself reading over Ianto's shoulder without him realising it. The only frustration was that Ianto read slightly faster than him, which meant Jack missed the last dozen lines of every second page and Ianto flipped it over before Jack could get to the end. It was mildly annoying but he had the general gist of the storyline and couldn't be bothered asking Ianto to pause for ten seconds before turning each page. He knew how the book ended, anyway.

Only when Jack began to catch up, finishing the page before Ianto turned it, did he realise that his page turner has slowed on account of sleepiness creeping up on him. Gwen had curled over and given in to sleep half an hour ago, abandoning her own book in favour of the comfort of the thick jacquard and embroidered cushion.

When Jack was finished reading the page well ahead of Ianto he reached over and plucked the book from Ianto's hands. ‘Time for bed,’ he said, knowing Ianto couldn't keep his eyes open much longer, judging by the current pace of his reading. Ianto didn't fight him on it, not even when Jack turned down the page and folded it, marking the place in the book - a thing which Ianto hated, along with Jack forcing books open too wide and snapping the spines, or licking his finger to turn the page. Ianto instead snuggled down, readjusting his pillow, even as Jack seated himself more sideways, allowing the pillow to nestle between his arm and his torso so that Ianto was lying somewhat alongside his body. Ianto pulled the blanket up and over his ears, leaving only his eyes and the top of his head uncovered. Jack pulled the rest across his lap and stomach, leaning his head sideways along the tall arm of the leather sofa so he could keep one eye on the computer screen.

A peace descended over the house, with even the fire beginning to burn low with only a gentle crackle and pop. With the three of them tucked up in here it felt cosy and safe. Perhaps people had talked it up too much, this haunting business. Didn't everyone want to believe an old house in the middle of nowhere was full of dark spirits of the long dead?


	12. Chapter 12

Something woke Jack. A sound, a feeling, a troubling sensation right down in his bones. He wasn't sure which. But something. Something that made him feel alert, every nerve ending tingling with unbidden life.

He hadn't even realised that he'd dozed off, much less that his arm was still asleep from where Ianto was lying on it. That was the tingling sensation he felt, as blood tried to force itself back into the slumbering flesh.

A rumpled Gwen emerged, disentangling herself from a wad of manchester. Jack could tell from the frown on her face that she'd been woken by something as well. Ianto stirred only as Jack tried to extricate his arm. He pushed himself up and saw both Jack and Gwen were awake. ‘What time is it? Did we pick up something?’

‘I thought I…’ Gwen's sentence trailed off as she considered how to phrase it. She threw a look at Jack. ‘Did we?’

Jack looked across at the laptop sitting idle on the table. Its screen was off, in sleep mode just as they'd all been. He brushed a finger over the mouse pad, bringing it back to life, but there was nothing. He shook his head.

‘I could have sworn I heard something,’ Gwen insisted. ‘Didn't you?’

‘Maybe there really are ghosts,’ Ianto suggested.

Jack shrugged off the feeling. ’Probably just a rogue squirrel scampering along the gutters.’ He could tell from the anxious looks his team were giving him that they didn't buy it for a second. ‘Relax you guys, it's nothing. Even if our equipment wasn't detecting something that shouldn't be there, I'd know about it,’ he said, holding out his wrist and tapping his vortex manipulator. At least he was pretty sure it would.

The noise came again and this time Jack couldn't deny it. It was a mighty big squirrel that made that much noise.

‘Nope, I definitely heard it that time,’ Ianto said.

Gwen nodded, her head trying to follow the direction it had come from. ‘Me too. It came from upstairs.’

Jack shook his head. ‘No, it was outside.’ That much he was certain of.

‘I'm with Gwen, it was definitely upstairs.’

Jack conceded the point. They couldn't both be wrong. ‘Maybe it was both,’ he said, unwilling to accept that maybe he'd been the one who had misheard. ‘Father Michael said there'd been looters in the area. They bolted when he stumbled on them. They might have decided to come back and give the place another try late at night when there was no chance of anyone being around.’

Ianto raised an eyebrow. ‘And they didn't notice the big black SUV parked out front?’

Jack shrugged it off. ‘Always a chance. They could have come around from behind.’ Even if they'd approached from the laneway, in the pitch black of a country night, it would be almost invisible, but the light from the sitting room window shouldn't be. Still, maybe they had snuck around the back again, away and over the creek or through the woods. It would be pretty easy to slip inside without anyone noticing. They hadn't exactly left the whole house lit up like a Christmas tree. ‘Okay, you two go check upstairs. I'll go out and check around the perimeter.’

‘We're not armed,’ Gwen reminded him.

‘Neither are they, in all likelihood. Besides, when has not having a gun ever stopped you? If they got scared off by a man of the cloth in his twilight years, they're not going to hang around if they see you two.’

‘Are you sure you should be going out there alone?’ Ianto's expression was furtive. Even Gwen looked up at Jack for a response as she was tugging her sneakers back on.

‘We've got a job to do,’ he reminded the pair of them. ‘No different to any other job. Stay focused.’ They nodded silently, donning their game faces, just as he knew they would.

There was a groan of wooden floorboards somewhere overhead, followed by a scratching sound. Jack couldn't mistake the sound this time. A few seconds later there was a rustle and a hiss, but that definitely sounded like it was coming from outside. ‘Meet back here in twenty, okay?’ He didn't need to tell them to watch each other's backs. They slipped from the room on silent feet, leaving him alone.

Tempting as it was to rewind some of their external camera footage, he knew time was of the essence. If they caught whoever it was, all well and good. They could be brought back here for questioning. If not, well, at least they could see if they'd managed to get a clear shot of the face, or faces, and throw it over to the police to handle. If there were locals running pranks and trying to spook the people who lived here, Jack had a special kind of punishment for them. After all, what better way to perpetuate stories about the place being haunted? And, if it turned out to be nothing more than a rogue badger, well, at least they could laugh about it afterwards.

He stepped out of the sitting room, casting his gaze left and right along the foyer, only catching just the briefest glimpse of Gwen and Ianto as they reached the top of the stairs and skipped around the corner and out of sight.

He slipped out through the front door and past the low hedges and symmetrical garden beds, hoping his feet didn't crunch too heavily on the gravel. His eyes took a few moments to adjust to the darkness outside, stubbing a boot on a wooden sleeper that had bent unnaturally out of place from the garden bed it was meant to be fencing off. He caught himself before it sent him tumbling, and focused on the straight line towards the SUV.

In less than twenty seconds, he'd opened the SUV door, popped open the glove box and retrieved his webley and a large torch. Just because he could probably handle a few kids, didn't mean having the gun didn't make him feel better. He pushed the door back shut as quietly as he could, leaning his weight against it until it clicked. For the moment he kept the torch off, letting his eyes drink in whatever available light there was.

And yes, from here, taking a direct path up the lane towards the house, it was abundantly clear that someone was home. The sitting room window glowed a burnished gold, casting its weak light onto the overgrown gardens beneath its low sills.

He turned his head quickly left and right, confirming there was no discernable movement around him. The noises he'd heard before seemed to be at the back of the house. Just like Father Michael had said, they'd broken in from the back. It was clearly a weak spot.

His night vision cleared and shapes that had been malformed before now merged into definitive objects: bushes, garden beds, trees, a wheelbarrow on its side he recalled from earlier that afternoon. Confident he now had the lay of the place, he dashed around towards the side of the house, pausing at the corner only a moment to peer around it, before lengthening his strides.

He was all the way to the coal house before he stopped again. Rather than skirt the corner, he moved away from the house, towards the trees that lined its eastern edge. He moved behind the first large trunk and changed direction, now moving north and further still from the house, using them as cover. Like a military tactician, he'd approach the house from the rear flank and surprise them. Whoever “they” were.


	13. Chapter 13

Gwen was as awake and alert as it was possible to be. It was a programmed response these days. The adrenaline kicked in well before any action, bringing all of her senses alive. She could feel the chill hanging in the air, smell the dust that clung to every surface and feel the way the air moved differently behind her just from having Ianto following in her wake. On top of that she could hear every creak and groan the floorboards made beneath the carpet as they moved from the landing and around into the hallway of the west wing of the house.

There was a scratching sound, but she couldn't quite tell where it was coming from. Somewhere further down the hall, or perhaps from within the walls themselves. It was impossible to tell, brief as it was.

‘If they're after stuff they'll go for the bedroom,’ she whispered. ‘That's where people keep their valuables.’ Not that she thought there was anything much of value in there, unless you liked old stuff.

‘I keep mine in the bottom of the box of cornflakes in the kitchen cupboard.’

‘Yes, well you would,’ she hissed back. Bad enough Rhys shoved their car keys inside a pair of his socks when they went on holidays. Even though they were clean, she could swear her key fob smelled like a whole team of rugby players for weeks afterwards.

‘Of course the wad of emergency cash is separate. I keep that in the-’

Gwen held up a fist, ending his train of conversation. Though it was dark, she could just make out the outlines of the walls and furniture in what night sky filtered through the windows. There it was again. A sound she couldn't put her finger on. Not quite footsteps but…

Gwen could feel Ianto's breath on her neck. ‘Times like this I wouldn't consider being armed with a frying pan quite so cliché.’

She couldn't help but smirk. ‘Should have grabbed those pokers from the fireplace.’ If she got desperate she was prepared to grab anything, even if all it was good for was as something to be thrown.

She tiptoed down the hallway, past the doorway of the master bedroom. The sound was further down the hall but the only thing beyond that was a large and rather grubby bathroom, complete with a giant bathtub on ornate feet. It seemed ridiculous that anyone would be down there.

‘This is the police,’ Gwen called out in a loud firm voice.

Ianto grabbed her arm and was about to say something. She shushed him before he could with a sharp look and the quietest hissing shh! she could manage. ‘Come out now and I'm sure we can come to some kind of arrangement.’

There was a pregnant pause as she waited for whoever it was to come out and show themselves. The floor groaned in protest at some movement, but there was no surrender.

‘Look, I can't be arsed with the paperwork of arresting somebody. We both know this is private property. Just come out now and we can have a quick chat and be on our way. How's that sound?’ She prayed that common sense would prevail and that their would be burglars would simply give themselves up.

There was a smashing sound of something falling off one of the cluttered sideboards, hitting the gap between the wall and the floor where the hall runner wasn't wide enough to cover the entire width. The lack of carpeted floor caused the item to break into what sounded like a hundred pieces, echoing back down the hall and bouncing off the narrow walls.

Gwen whipped her head around to curse Ianto for being so clumsy but he was only a step behind her and the sound had come from much further down back the way they'd already been. There was no sound of pounding footsteps, meaning they hadn't made a run for it back towards the landing. Shit. She pushed past Ianto. The bedroom. They must have darted in there to hide. There was nowhere else to go.

She bolted down the hall, almost missing the doorway in the dark and grabbing its edge at the last second, throwing herself into the room. It was easier to see in here. The heavy drapes covering the large western facing windows hung open letting in whatever night light there was. The large furniture cast huge shadows across the room and it was these spots she focused her eyes on. Anything could have been hiding in those patches of darkness.

The door slammed hard behind her, rattling on its hinges and Gwen jumped in alarm at the sudden deafening sound.

She swallowed down the momentary panic. Get a grip, Gwen, the door didn't shut itself. Just a breeze coming through the window probably pushed it. She looked across the room at the window. It was a clear moonless night but the shadows cast by the curtains draped either side of the large glass panels weren't moving in the slightest. None of the windows were open.

She paced back towards the door and grabbed the handle, finding it stuck. Her original anxiety set back in.

‘Ianto? The door is stuck!’ she yelled out. She jiggled the doorknob hard but it wouldn't budge. She brushed a hand over it and the area surrounding the handle but there was no lock mechanism. It couldn't have been locked from the outside. It was just stuck. 'Ianto!' she called out again. Why wasn't he responding? He'd only been a few steps behind her. He wouldn't have shut it on her. Not unless he was now in pursuit of whoever had. She pounded a fist on the door several times. ‘Ianto!’

‘Bollocks,’ she swore, rattling the door hard one last time before giving up on it.

Her hand brushed the peeling wallpaper, searching for the bulbous light switch near the door. She found it, the plastic cold under her fingers but something stayed her hand from flicking it on. There was a sound, heavy breathing, almost a snorting, snoring kind of sound. She swallowed hard and strained to hear anything other than the sound of her own blood rushing in her ears. Her thumb flipped the light switch but nothing happened. The sound came again, low, growling and threatening.

Something was in here with her and it didn't sound human.


	14. Chapter 14

When Gwen had bustled past him, hot on the heels of the source of the sound, Ianto first doubled back to the other end of the house. There was so much stuff piled on every available space that it would have been all too easy to grab something and loft it in completely the opposite direction, making them think they knew where their intruders were. There wasn't time to explain to Gwen so he just pivoted and ran back down towards the end of the hallway. He nearly forgot to stop, banking sharply left into the bathroom, ready for anything, and to throw his best right hook at anyone who stood there ready to attack.

His feet went out from under him as something slick underfoot caught him unawares. He flung his arms out to stop his descent but it was his head that connected first with the hard edge of the tall bathtub. The rest of his fall to the floor went unnoticed in a flash of pain.

His head pounded when he regained his senses, but one of them was missing. It was like someone had turned off all the lights, except there'd been none on to begin with. What had been muted shapes and shadows cast by a moonless night outside had now turned to pitch. He couldn't make out anything, not even his own hand right in front of his face. There was a terrifying moment when he'd thought he must have torn his retinas during his fall, yet apart from the aching lump on the back of his head, there was no other pain. Why then couldn't he see anything? He couldn't have been out of it for more than a few seconds. He didn't think he'd blacked out but he couldn't be sure.

There was a sound of water slapping the floor. Had one of them left the tap on, or not turned it off tightly enough? The pipes could very well have been blocked from years of poor maintenance and their sudden presence here too much for them to cope with. Still the water continued to spill over the edge of the sink from what he could tell. Why hadn't they heard that earlier, he wondered.

He'd slipped on the flooded floor and knocked himself out cold. In his head he said an expletive his mother would have been appalled by. Great. The others would never let him live that down. He blinked a few times trying to see if his vision would clear but everything was just as dark. He bit down on the urge to panic. Gwen would be back. Jack too.

He reached out a hand to push himself up off the floor. The hand that found the wet floor under him jolted back in alarm. The water was warm. It was strange as well, viscous, sticky. He raised his hand to his face and the sharp metallic tang of blood invaded his delicate sense of smell. Had he hit his head that hard? Now the scent of blood was everywhere. It couldn't be his. There was too much of it.

He reached up for the edge of the bath, pulling his elbow over its edge, so that he was holding onto something in case his feet slipped under him again on the wet floor. He reached out, trying to turn the taps to wash the blood from his hand. Nothing came out at first as the clunk of air rattled in the pipes. Then they began to flow freely, but as he ran his hand under it, he felt more of the same warm sticky liquid. He recoiled, slipping on the floor again. It was everywhere, spilling from the taps themselves which just wasn't possible. He wiped his hand on his jeans and stumbled, slipped and slid the entire way, trying to get away from the streaming taps of blood.

His foot finally gained a purchase on something - carpet from the hall - and the arrest in his momentum nearly sent him sprawling again.

‘Gwen!’ he shouted.

He fumbled in his jeans pocket for his keys, tugging them out and fiddling with the small Maglite attached to his key chain. He turned the end of it but there was no light. He shook it in case the battery was on the blink but he couldn't see anything, not even the tiniest glint of light bouncing off the metal surface of his keys. He'd used it a thousand times and it had never failed him. He pointed it straight into his face, desperate to see even the faintest blur of something bright. He couldn't see anything at all.

‘Gwen!’

He staggered down the hall, arms first finding one wall and then the other as he pinballed blindly. The sharp corner of a piece of furniture caught the side of his leg and it buckled underneath him. He swore quietly as he fell on hands and knees. His keys and torch tumbled from his hands in the fall but try as he might, he couldn't locate them again.

‘That's fine,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Couldn't see anyway. That's not a problem either,’ he tried to convince himself. ‘Perfectly normal to become totally blind for no apparent reason.’

He closed his eyes, trying to focus on his other senses. Have to find Gwen. She couldn't be far away. She'd been headed for the bedroom. Something could have attacked her. She might need his help. He felt along the wall, looking for the doorway, but his hands kept landing on empty space or cluttered furniture. There seemed to be more of it than he remembered.

He found an opening, reaching forward but it was cold tiles that met his hand. Damn it. He'd somehow gotten turned around and was headed in altogether the wrong direction. He moved back the other way and then froze as the sound of scratching returned. It was somewhere in front of him. No. Now it was somewhere overhead. Then it felt like it was behind him. He pushed himself to his feet and ran, not caring how many times he smacked into things.

The noise morphed from scratching into footsteps. Other sounds of things skittering inside the walls surrounded him from all angles as he kept fumbling as fast as he could. He should have reached the end of the hall ages ago but it just seemed to stretch on forever. A fold in the hall runner caught his foot and he went somersaulting, slamming into the wall. He knocked several items off a low table as he used it to try and pull himself back to his feet. They smashed around his feet adding broken ceramic and glass to the floor.

The disorienting darkness made it impossible to tell which direction he was facing. Noises were converging from all angles or maybe they were just echoes. He knew roughly where he should have been in relation to everything else but doors weren't where he expected them to be. He should have reached the corner of the house where it diverted right onto the main landing by now.

The scratching sound grew into a cacophony of endless static. He could have sworn he heard voices whispering subliminally underneath it but couldn't make out what they were saying. It grew louder and louder, rising up like a tidal wave.

He scrabbled blindly down the hall on his backside, feeling the rotting carpet beneath his hands as he crawled backwards, still trying desperately to see anything at all in front of him. He wasn't sure he wanted to see what kind of creature could make such a noise. He turned over onto his knees deciding that escape was more important.

Something was behind him. He could hear the voices growing louder inside the din. Louder and louder and now he realised they were calling his name. He flailed about for anything he could get his hands on. His arms wrapped around cold hard stone that, if he recalled, had been an ugly bust of some unnamed Victorian. With whatever strength he could find he pulled on it, toppling it to fall into the path of whatever was pursuing him. It wouldn't stop them for more than a few seconds if they tripped on it, but right now he'd take whatever precious seconds he could get.

He dragged himself back up onto his feet, knowing he'd be faster at a run, even if he couldn't see. He bounced off a wall and then went for it as fast as he could. For a brief few moments he propelled forward at speed without hitting anything. Then the floor beneath him disappeared and the world turned upside down.


	15. Chapter 15

Jack's breath ghosted in front of his face in the chill autumnal air, obscuring his view. He could smell the smoke rising from the chimney and settling over the house and surrounding landscape. It was quaint, just not exactly his cup of tea, if for no other reason than he had no idea who the neighbours were and whether they were friendly. They were about to find out that the latest occupants of Abercrafen House were not the kind that liked to be messed with. If they wanted to be the welcome wagon they could bring a plate of fresh eggs.

“We've got triangular flags.” The saying popped into Jack's head without him consciously being aware of it. It was something Ianto said - an obscure movie reference for which Jack had never bothered to get a full explanation - but had something to do with football and Cardiff. The basic sentiment was "don't mess with us because we're from Cardiff". That was good enough for Jack.

He leant against the gnarled bark of a large tree at the edges of the woodland, leaning out to peer around it. As much as he wanted to storm the gates, guns blazing, he'd opted for caution. His team were still inside the house, capable but unarmed. He didn't want to do anything hasty or stupid that might get them hurt. He wanted to get a good look at who was out there and how many of them there were. Any thoughts that this was anything other than simple human intervention abandoned him. Their equipment had registered absolutely nothing so that only left humans to blame. He just hoped they weren't the same kind they'd run into before. This time he wouldn't show the same kind of mercy.

He slipped the torch into his coat pocket, letting it weigh heavily at his side. With his freed up hand he reached for his gun, pulling back on its safety with a practised thumb and keeping it low at his side as he surveyed the house from his position.

He had to strain his eyes to make out the shapes that covered the space between him and the back of the house. Tall headstones cast unusual shadows that served to confuse. He couldn't tell if half those shadows belonged to stones jutting up from the ground or something else. He watched each one of them for several minutes, looking for the faintest traces of movement.

Leaves on the trees rustled as a breeze kicked up from nowhere, breaking up the direction of any other sounds. It vexed him, not being able to tell them to be quiet. It was then that he came upon a realisation. Up until now there'd been no other sounds. Not the howl of a fox or the hoot of an owl. Not even the chitter of small nocturnal creatures moving between the trees. He tried to remember if he'd heard any birdsong when he'd been out walking with Father Michael. The abandoned vegetable garden should have had crows picking over its remnants, sparrows and minors tweeting in the trees, the cellar teeming with rats in search of food but he hadn't seen or heard any of them. This whole place was devoid of life.

He stepped out from the tree line, moving cautiously, picking his way over the uneven ground. Headstones and grave markers littered the sloping verge, some easy to spot, others still lying face down where they'd fallen, or hidden in foot long grasses, providing additional challenges. He kept his eyes fixed on the back kitchen door, waiting for someone to make a move, either entering or exiting.

There was a sound - laughter - and he automatically dropped to his haunches, concealing himself behind a tall headstone. Had they seen him? He waited for the sound again but this time it came from a different direction. He couldn't pinpoint it or see any movement.

A shiver ran through his body. It wasn't fear. He wasn't afraid. It was just a genuine sensation of being cold. So cold. His breath suddenly puffed out in front of his face in a thick white cloud. The temperature dropped so sharply and so suddenly that Jack's teeth began to chatter. He clenched them as tightly as he could to stop their movements.

He jolted at the sound of a whispered voice almost right behind him. He swung around, gun gripped between both hands. He was about to yell "don't move!" but there was nothing there. He made a slow circle, his gun still held high. Whispers tugged at him from all directions until he'd turned three hundred and sixty degrees, facing the house once more.

This time he did see something. The silhouettes of people standing by the windows of the house. No. Not black silhouettes against a backdrop of light. Silhouettes of light against a backdrop of black. There were no lights on in the house, yet the blurred outlines of them glowed from every window.

‘What the hell?’ he murmured. He tried to count them all. Too many. Beings made of light pressed to the glass and he knew they were watching him.

‘What do you want?’ he called out. The sound of his own voice was flat, like the air had stolen it away. He wasn't even sure they'd heard him.

Something hit his foot and he jumped involuntarily. His own gun had dropped from his hands. They were pale and almost frozen. Numbness had made him drop the gun. He could barely wrap them back around it to pick it up and holster it. He tucked them under his armpits as his breath became a thick impenetrable fog. It was getting colder and colder. The tips of his ears and nose burned from the cold. The air he breathed in was so icy it was painful. It was unnatural and a little scary.

‘We… We don't…’ Jack struggled to form the words. The air turned his throat drier than a desert and his lips were numb and immovable. His whole body shook violently from the cold. His mind could scarcely focus on anything else.

The house. He had to get back inside. It didn't matter what was in there. Out here he was going to die from the cold, he knew that. And he had to find Gwen and Ianto. His legs would barely move, numb and leaden. He forced them to take one clumsy step and then another. Both felt like they were impossibly exhausting - that he'd been out here in the frigid conditions for hours and not merely minutes. It sapped his strength and muddled his conscious thoughts. The house might have only been twenty yards away but it might as well have been twenty miles.

He hunched into the smallest shape he could, slowly trekking one step at a time. He gave up trying to fight off his body's reaction. Teeth chattered so hard his head rattled and the whispers started up again, filling his head with a cyclone of nonsense. He just had to get to the house. That was all that mattered. It became dark again as the figures in the windows disappeared. They were behind him now, filling the gardens and the graveyard, still watching him. They made no attempt to converge on him. The thought struck him that they appeared curious.

By some miracle he finally reached the green painted kitchen door. He extracted his hands out from under his armpits which trembled along with the rest of his body. They wrapped clumsily around the ice cold brass knob but when he pulled at it he found it locked. No! his mind screamed out. He was so close it was cruel. He threw his elbow through the glass, forgetting completely that he had the heavy torch in his pocket. Glass tinkled down onto the slate floor as he forced enough broken shards out of the frame to slip an arm through.

The bolt latch on the other side was almost too much for his numb fingers, but he could feel the warmth inside the house already radiating up his arm. He fiddled desperately with it until finally he gripped it tight enough to pull it back, releasing the bolt. He just about fell through the door before slamming it back shut and sliding the bolt back in place. Through the broken hole in the glass he saw the figures of light fading. One by one they blinked back out of existence, like they'd never been there at all.

Jack let out a ragged breath and slid down against the door and onto the floor. There was a fire in the sitting room where he could warm himself back up but he couldn't find the strength to move any further. Just being inside was making all the difference, returning feeling to his shaking, frozen limbs. Whatever this was, they were all in danger, but he just needed a moment to rest. He didn't even notice his eyes droop shut.


	16. Chapter 16

Gwen's heart began to pound in her chest at the realisation she wasn't alone. She'd been prepared to face kids, or even adults, perhaps with weapons or at least enough gumption to break bones. She'd stepped into the unknown to face God only knew what more times than she could count, but she'd always been ready for it, armed, or at least had backup.

She reached slowly around behind her and felt for the phone in her back pocket that should be there. When her hand touched nothing more than denim covered flesh she could have sworn like a sailor. Her phone was still on the coffee table downstairs where she'd left it after downloading all her photos. Ianto's too, she realised, picturing the two of them side by side next to her laptop. She had no way of getting in touch with him, or Jack, assuming she could get any phone reception at all.

The low growl continued. Gwen searched the darkened room for the source but nothing was moving and nothing looked out of place. The room was large and spacious. It had its own hearth and a writing desk, several chintz chairs that were oddly pointed inwards rather than out at the country views through the windows. A huge gilt mirror hung over the hearth, reflecting back the huge four poster bed and the chaise that nestled at its foot. The rugs were worn in several spots and the canopy over the bed was equal parts fabric and cobwebs. In its day it might have been grand, but her inspections earlier had left her with the sense that its occupants had been depressed and uninspired by the views.

And there had definitely not been anything alive in here. As best she could tell the sound was coming from the one place she couldn't see. Under the bed.

Gwen remained stock still with her back to the door. The hand that had initially gone in search of her phone now stretched behind her back, seeking out the door knob once more. Please let Ianto be just on the other side. She'd have given anything for a slapstick moment of Ianto bursting through the door and knocking her flat on her face, discovering that it was only locked from the inside. Except there was no lock, she reminded herself. Not on this side of the door in any case. She didn't remember seeing locks on any of the doors except the front door and a rudimentary bolt on the kitchen door at the back. Perhaps the door was just warped in the frame, too many years of damp winters making it stick fast in the jamb.

She gave the brass knob another turn, praying it would open this time. It rattled so loud she thought the thing, whatever it was, would come leaping out straight at her. Her eyes remained fixed on the underside of the bed and the rotting valence, desperately searching for any sign of movement.

She resisted the urge to yell again. Whatever was under the bed would move faster than anyone would get to the door to let her out. What was under there? How had it gotten inside? They'd turned this place upside down all afternoon and found nothing. No sign of anything at all. Had Jack been right all along in thinking it was something alien? Maybe the house was situated on some kind of tear in space that allowed the thing to slip in and out unnoticed. Their equipment should have picked up something like that straight away. But why then did people think it was a ghost? Ghosts didn't usually growl like beasts.

Not the time, Gwen, she reminded herself. There'd be time enough for questions and curiosity once she was safely out of its path, or at least having subdued it. Instincts told her it was dangerous and that confronting it was a bad idea.

She looked around the room for inspiration. There were no wardrobes she could climb into or furniture she could use to defend herself. With the door stuck fast she was trapped in here.

The sound from under the bed faded until she began to wonder if it had ever been there at all or whether she'd somehow imagined it. Was the thing asleep maybe? Her eyes landed on the bed. It was a huge sturdy thing with carved posters and a heavy top frame hidden under all that frayed material. She could probably climb up on top of it and watch from up there to see what crawled out from underneath. She just had to know what it was. Of course, to get up there meant getting as close as possible. Her head told her it was a bad idea but her heart was flooding with adrenaline. What choice did she have? Stay here and wait for it to find her or take a chance at getting out of its path. Until someone came along and broke down the door from the outside, those were the only two options.

She steeled herself to take her first step forward. It was a languorous movement that was predicated on being as silent and unnoticeable as possible. When nothing happened she took a second step, and then a third, each with a long pause in between. It felt like she'd moved a mile but when she turned around to look behind her the door was only a yard away and the bed was still a good ten feet away at best.

She took another step and the floor creaked beneath her sneaker. She froze immediately, taking her weight back off it. She tried a few inches further to the left, placing her foot down as slowly as she could but as she added more weight to it, the floor groaned again.

A hiss and a low animalistic heavy breathing started up. She became like a statue, not even blinking. She couldn't tell how long she held that pose until she knew that with her weight precariously balanced all on her back leg that she couldn't stay that way a moment longer. It was cramping from the effort. If she didn't move, she might very well fall over.

She slid her other foot a little further forward, praying the next spot on the rug she found didn't have a loose floorboard underneath it. With a ballet dancer's pose she pressed toes to the floor first, shifting from her back foot to her front. The silence held. She gasped involuntarily, not realising she'd been holding her breath and that her lungs were desperate for air.

She tried to steady her breath, forcing it in long cautious cycles. Her heart was pounding faster than it should be. She couldn't explain the deep-seated anxiety except for the awful sensation that she was alone. It felt like the house was empty all but for her and whatever was in here with her. It was madness. Jack and Ianto had to be just a stone's throw away. So why did she feel so alone?

She'd had nightmares about the kinds of monsters that lurked under her bed when she was little. Every night her dad had come in and checked for her before she got in, but it hadn't stopped her from insisting on the night light plugged into the wall, and the torch she kept on her bedside table so that she could use it to dispel the shadows when her mind convinced her that they were something more than they were. As an adult she'd felt ridiculous to have ever been frightened at all. At least she knew there was nothing under her bed these days. There was so much junk accumulated from her life with Rhys that nothing else could possibly fit under there. Now she was beginning to wonder if her fears hadn't been that unfounded at all.

Every step forward felt agonising and slow. She was almost there and that filled her with a renewed sense of anxiety. She was perhaps only three feet away. The thing was bound to come out at any moment and grab her. God, why had she ever thought this was a good idea?

She leaned her upper body forward, reaching towards the thick wooden poster. Her fingertips brushed it and she leaned a little more, wrapping her hand around it, feeling every groove in the carved timber. She reached out her other hand, holding it tightly with both now. She dropped her head to look down at the gap between her and the edge of the bed. It seemed so black she couldn't see if the valence was moving or not. She lifted her leg, trying to wedge it in the corner joint between the poster and the end board. She swallowed the lump in the back of her throat. One chance to heft herself up. She took a deep breath and then pulled herself up as quickly as she could. She didn't stop there. She jammed her foot into the next largest carved gap and kept going, reaching for the top of the frame to pull herself the rest of the way up.

It was enough motion to disturb the creature. She scurried over the top and then rolled over onto her belly. She brushed back her hair, pulling it behind her ear and slowly poked her head out over the side.

What emerged from beneath the bed made her breath solidify in her chest like cement. She'd thought it was dark in here before but there was a marked difference between the darkness her eyes had adjusted to and the thing that slid out from under the bed. She couldn't quite make out what it was exactly. It seemed to be all shadows and jagged thorns in a vaguely human shape, but moved like wisps of smoke. And it was huge. As more and more of it emerged it was impossible to see how it had hidden itself away under there. It expanded into a huge mass of sharp edges, blacker than the darkest thing she could imagine. It had filled the space between the bed and the door, completely blocking off any chance of exit. It hissed and gurgled menacingly, like it had been compressed into too small a space and was now finally reforming into its proper state. Soon it was going to be so large that it would be tall enough to see her, and maybe large enough to consume the whole room.

For a brief moment she was fixed to the spot as she felt a presence deep within the monster. She sensed it and it sensed her. She scrambled back from the edge as the thing glided up with frightening speed towards her.

She flung herself away and over the other edge of the bed. The thing hissed and wailed as it slid up and over the entire bed frame in its pursuit. Gwen bolted to the end of the room knowing full well it had her cornered with nowhere to go. It passed right through a chintz armchair in its path.

An icy rush of air preceded the thing and the window behind Gwen began to frost up with icicles. The window! She scrambled up onto the low cabinet and grabbed an armful of thick drapes before kicking out at the glass, forming as big a hole as she could. The drop from the window would be twenty feet at least. It might kill her but she was out of options.

She threw herself out through it, feet first, and felt the predictable tearing as the drapes broke away from their railing. The rest snagged on the broken window, ripping in long screeching tears which slowed her fall before they tore through completely and dropped her the remaining ten feet. She landed hard on her side, feeling her upper arm and shoulder take the brunt of the fall. The shock of landing lasted into a few seconds before she forced herself to her feet and ran. It didn't matter where, just so long as she put distance between her and that thing which was bound to be right on her heels.


	17. Chapter 17

Everything in Ianto's body hurt. His world had spun around like he'd been thrown in a tumble dryer and then it came to an abrupt and painful stop. He reasoned that he must have fallen down the staircase, even if he couldn't figure out how that was possible when he'd been running in a straight line.

He pushed himself to his feet, relieved that at least the voices had stopped. In fact, everything had stopped. There wasn't a sound to be heard anywhere. His world wasn't just black but now it was silent as well. It wasn't right. Where was Gwen? For that matter, where was Jack? He yelled out their names, relieved that he could at least hear his own voice ring out. It echoed in the large space. even if it was hoarse and not as measured as he'd like.

He found the last four steps that ran perpendicular to the main staircase, leading down to the foyer. Whatever hadn't already been in pain was now added to with the inelegant tumble down those last four steps onto the parquet floor. Just when he thought his dignity couldn't take anymore of a battering.

‘Jack!’ he cried out again, feeling desperate. ‘Anybody?’ There was a pregnant pause as he waited for a response. ‘Please.’

He took a deep breath. He wouldn't panic. Panicking wouldn't help him. ‘It's just a, uh… spooky old house. Full of creepy noises and blood pouring out of the taps. That's all. And there's the small matter of not being able to see anything.’

He drew around in a slow circle, trying to make out anything at all in the darkness. He wasn't sure what to do. If he couldn't see, should he stay where he was or try to find the others for help? And whatever had been upstairs that had been chasing him was presumably still there.

As he turned, something finally did enter his field of vision. As first he thought he must have imagined it, but a tiny prick of light appeared, like a twinkling star in an endless empty sky. It slowly grew a little brighter, forming into a large indistinct ball. Okay, so not completely blind. That was good. Just something in his eyes perhaps, dust or something dislodged from the furniture upstairs. God alone knew what kind of chemicals were in the lacquer and the paint, and the place was positively crumbling.

‘First aid kit in the car,’ he told himself. There'd be tubes of saline he could use to irrigate his eyes. Not that far away, he tried to convince himself. A bit to the left or roundabouts there was the front door. The SUV was parked right out front, not fifteen yards away. ‘But no keys,’ he said, patting himself down and remembering dropping them somewhere upstairs.

The light still hovered off in the distance. He wondered what it was. Reaching out his right hand he finally found the end of the banister with its rounded timber end, helping to orient himself in relation to the rest of the space. If he was facing east he should have the sitting room directly in front of him. If he could see light, then why was there nothing but darkness in that direction? The fire might be down to embers but the lamps in the room would all still be on, unless the power had gone out. And if the power had gone out, what was the source of the light he was seeing now?

He turned his head towards the light source. It was more diagonally right of him, towards the breakfast parlour and kitchen. It didn't make any sense, but he hoped that the kitchen might at least provide water that didn't run with blood. Anything that might improve his sight.

Reluctantly he let go of the banister, relinquishing the solid feel of the polished timber. It felt like letting go of a lifebuoy in the middle of an endless ocean. By rights there should be nothing blocking his path yet each step was hesitant, his arms held out in front of him lest they find something or be ready to break his fall. He kept following the light source which neither glowed brighter nor changed in size. He couldn't understand what it was but he felt no fear in letting it guide him.

The foyer seemed to stretch on for an age. Just like upstairs, the house seemed to have changed or his perception of its dimensions had warped. It was surely not more than ten or twelve yards diagonally across but he'd lost count of how many measured steps he'd taken. He kept going until his hand brushed something. It was rough beneath his fingertips but as he moved them a little further he felt something more raised up. A framed painting, he confirmed, running his hand up the length of gilt picture frame. He was close. He kept pawing the wall until it came to an end, feeling the door frame.

He let his photographic memory take charge, navigating through the breakfast parlour and into the long kitchen. The light hovered near where he expected the door to be. Perhaps it was an external floodlight. Jack might have switched it on before heading out. Eyes first; sticking his head out the back door and yelling for Jack came second.

He took a few more steps, finding the long table that ran the length of the kitchen and feeling his way around its rough timber edges. He took a wild guess, turning about halfway along and moving towards where he thought the sink must be. He wasn't disappointed, laying his hands on the old metal faucet on the first attempt.

He twisted the stiff handles, holding one hand under it and waiting for ice cold water to trickle out into his palm. He could hear the water begin to run, hitting the deep metal basin but there was none falling into his waiting hand. He moved it around, twisted the tap harder and moved his hand all the way up to the spout but there was nothing coming out. So why could he hear it?

There were other sounds too now. Strained breathing, a sound of… teeth chattering, perhaps. He couldn't tell which direction it came from. Something else hit his senses. He could almost smell Jack, like he'd been here, or was here. He looked around still trying to see anything. The light continued to hover where it was, though dimmer now, fading. He worried his sight was deteriorating. Jack could be here, somewhere nearby and in trouble and he couldn't even see him!

‘Jack?’ He tried to use his keen sense of smell. He knew Jack's scent better than anyone. It was useless trying to sneak up on Ianto, he always knew Jack was there. He didn't need cologne with such an alluring natural fragrance. Fresh from the shower or having just trawled his way out of a dumpster, Jack would smell just as strongly.

He fumbled around the kitchen bench, relying totally on his nose. Across the other side of the room it felt stronger, filling his head with that happy, foggy sensation of Jack's presence. He stepped carefully, using his feet to explore the floor, searching for a Jack that might be lying there unconscious just inches away. His urgency increased as the light over his shoulder faded more and more. If he hadn't searched most of the far side of the kitchen by now he wasn't far off.

Jack's scent pervaded his remaining senses more strongly. There was one place he realised he hadn't checked. The boiler down in the cellar. He crawled along the wall, finding the door. It hung open and the sound of something living was clearer now, coming from down inside there. ‘I'm coming,’ Ianto said, feeling his way down the first steep step and into a darkness where his lack of vision suddenly didn't seem to matter. ‘Just hang on.’


	18. Chapter 18

Jack's eyes opened onto darkness. It took him a moment to remember where he was, slumped on the floor by the kitchen door. He couldn't be sure if he'd been out of it for a few minutes or a few hours, but that chill that had gripped him outside, clouding his thoughts and stiffening his limbs had finally abated. Warmth flooded back into them, limbering them up and his strength felt renewed. Whatever had been outside seemingly couldn't touch him in here.

His eyes readjusted in the unlit kitchen as he got his feet under him. He flicked a switch on the wall but the lights didn't come on. He might have rolled his eyes at the power being off if it weren't so obviously connected to everything that was going on in this house. Any thoughts of hoodlums being the explanation for it had fled from his mind. Humans couldn't make the weather suddenly drop twenty degrees. The problem was, Jack didn't know of anything that could. Not like what he'd experienced.

He pulled the torch out of his coat and switched it on, letting the beam of light play across the long wooden bench, the ancient stove and the uncovered brickwork. The tap over the sink was dripping with a heavy plop, plop sound on the metal. He walked over to it and felt the droplets on his fingertips, ice cold like everything else. He turned it off tightly, unsettled by the sound. He much preferred the silence. Everything else seemed to be just how they'd left it, their meager supplies in a bag on the bench, dishes washed and put away. Only the cellar door hung open. He pointed his torchlight down the stairs but the darkness ate it up within a few feet. He shook his head, trying to dispel his paranoia and pulled the door tightly shut. He turned the heavy key in the lock for good measure. One less place he had to worry about.

Stepping out into the foyer, Jack called out to Gwen and Ianto as he did a quick reconnaissance of the rooms on the ground floor. No one responded and that in itself worried Jack. The house was large but it was also open and sounds reverberated around it with ease. As much as he wanted to dash straight upstairs, he stopped in the sitting room first. He was anxious to know what their equipment had to say. There must have been something recorded by now that would tell him what they might be dealing with here.

The sitting room was bereft of any signs that Gwen or Ianto had returned here. The lamps were off and the fire cast only the faintest orange glow over the room. Their phones and laptops lay where they'd been and the batteries on both computers were mysteriously depleted. Any data they'd collected was now on a Torchwood server miles away with no other way to access it. Jack flipped open his vortex manipulator to see what it could tell him, but it was equally silent on the matter. What the hell was going on around here?

He wasted no more time, crossing the foyer and taking the steps two at a time, all the while calling out for his two teammates. He drew his webley and held the torch under it, ready for anything as he took long strides along the landing. He looked out the large windows as he proceeded down towards the east wing of the house. There were no lights on out there, no ghostly figures hovering over the graves. If he hadn't been so sure of himself, he might have said he'd imagined them, but no. They'd been in the house, peering from the windows, and then in the grounds all around him. But where were they now, and what did they want?

‘Gwen! Ianto!’ He yelled their names, not caring who heard him. He wouldn't be afraid. He let his torch search every corner, behind every piece of furniture, every last inch of every room. His concern grew heavier as he moved from one end of the house to the other, finding no trace of either of them. They couldn't have just disappeared into thin air.

A slight breeze rippled across his face as he headed back towards the west wing. He followed it into the master bedroom where at last he saw signs that someone had been there. Across the room one of the two large windows had been broken, and the curtains ripped from their fastenings, now dangling out through the broken glass in a tattered mess that fluttered with the breeze.

He leaned over, careful not to place his hands on any broken shards. It had definitely been broken from the inside. Something or someone had tried to escape.

‘Hello! Is anyone down there?’ Jack yelled out the broken window. Down below on the flagstones he could see a few torn strips of curtain but nothing else. He prayed that whoever it was, they hadn't suffered from that same freezing temperature. If they had, surely they wouldn't have made it far. He should be able to see them from this vantage point.

He left the bedroom to wrap up his search of the western side of the house. There were more signs of disturbance in the hall. Things knocked over or thrown that now cluttered the dark space attempting to trip him up. When he reached the end of the hall, the sight of the bathroom stopped his heart for a second. The floor was covered in blood, lying in a huge pool. Bloody handprints marked the edge of the bathtub. There was so much of it. Enough to mark the spot where the body it had belonged to should have been. No one should have survived losing that much blood.

He traced its movements across the floor with his torchlight. There was a patch indicating some kind of struggle and then his light found a bloody footprint. It was impossible to tell if it belonged to a man or a woman. It was too indistinct, but where he found one, he found a second, then a third. They were leading out of the bathroom and into the hall. Whoever they belonged to, murderer or victim, was still alive. The more he shone his light over the floor and the walls, the more bloodied marks he found. He followed them with a sense of urgency, finding them more easily now that he knew to look for them until the last of them stopped at the top of the stairs and then there were no more. They just stopped.

Jack flew back down the stairs, certain that there must be more signs he'd missed. Whoever they belonged to, he'd find them.

As he reached the second to last step, he felt a cold sensation wash over him, like someone had walked over his grave. He took the final step and then blinked in confusion. The foyer wasn't there. When he looked around him he was somehow back upstairs, in the study of all places it seemed. A red light blinked on a motion camera Gwen had set up, acknowledging his presence and recording it for posterity.

He stepped out of the room, looking left and right along the hall. There was no mistaking where he was. The question was how had he gotten here? He hadn't just imagined walking down the stairs. You couldn't take a wrong turn and end up somewhere else.

He walked back down the hall, around the corner and onto the landing. He looked down over the railing at the darkened foyer and the spot at the bottom of the stairs where he'd been just moments ago. Everything looked normal.

He crossed the landing and the hairs on the back of his neck felt like they were standing on end as he paused at the top of the stairs. He descended them again, shining his torch carefully left and right along them, looking for anything out of place. He reached the bottom and stepped off. And found himself in the spare bedroom, facing the windows that looked out over the back of the house.

He paced quickly out of the room, across the landing and down the stairs. He stopped just before he reached that final step and flipped open his vortex manipulator, logging his exact four dimensional position. He stepped over the threshold and nearly tripped as a large overturned marble bust caught his ankle. He'd seen it before, in the hallway with the bloody footprints.

He checked his wrist strap again, confirming his suspicions. Time had slowed almost imperceptibly, but not stopped. The time between his leaving the bedroom and reaching the bottom of the stairs was almost real time, but it was his position in space that changed. Somehow he'd gone from one part of space time to another without any of the technology that made such things possible. He knew what it was to travel through warped space, and the feeling of it on the atoms in his body as they reconstituted themselves in precisely the same configuration. This was different. Like he was being transported to a moment just milliseconds before he'd stepped over that invisible line. That shouldn't be possible. There wasn't a technology anywhere that could do that. He knew that better than anyone. Could Gwen and Ianto have stepped into the same space anomaly and ended up somewhere else?

He gave it one more try, walking towards the mysterious tear in space at a much more confident pace. He found himself back at the top of the stairs. He descended right to the bottom and switched his torch back on, aiming it through the space he'd just tried to step through. The sharp beam of light crossed the gap and bounced off the huge mirror on the opposite side of the wall, filling the foyer with its reflected light. ‘Okay, so the light can go through it, but I can't.’

Another chill ran down his spine as he felt the eyes of every portrait on the walls from the foyer staring straight at him. Something wanted to keep him here. He just didn't know why.


	19. Chapter 19

Gwen might have sworn if there was any air left in her lungs from running. Her shoulder was aching terribly from her fall out through the window. It felt like perhaps part of the upper bone was broken and she grabbed it with her other hand, pressing it tightly to her side.

She hated herself for fleeing. There was a monster in that house and she had no idea what it was or how to fight it. But she'd also known that if she hadn't it would have killed her.

Branches whipped out and scratched her arms and face as she kept running. She slammed into an unseen tree that arrested her movements completely and knocked her flat on her back. The jolt sent a fresh wave of pain down her shoulder and she cried out from frustration as much as anything.

Her chest heaved up and down as she lay there on the forest floor, straining her ears for the sound of anything pursuing her. She heard nothing. Nothing but the sound of her own laboured breathing and the view of the tree canopy and starry sky above her. Were it not for the life threatening danger, she might have considered it quite pretty.

She gently pushed up with her good left arm, using it to diagnose just how bad her right shoulder was. It was perhaps just jarred, or a muscle torn, but she kept it clutched across her chest all the same. She had no idea how far she'd run, but she knew she had to go back. The others were back there somewhere. Her blood ran cold at the thought she'd left Ianto in the house with that thing.

She tried to get her bearings, but she felt like she'd been turned around five times. She hadn't taken much notice as she'd made for the tree line and then just kept going. It was the only place she thought she might be able to hide from that shadowy monster if it came after her. She started off in what she thought might be the right direction, always keeping an ear and her eyes open for any signs of the creature.

As she ploughed through the trees her mind turned to work. Where had it come from, where had it been hiding whilst they'd been in the house and around her grounds all day? Did it only come out at night? Was it afraid of light? Could they use that as a weapon against it? God she hated it when all she had was questions and no answers.

She wandered for about for several minutes, feeling no less lost than before, until she spotted a dim light somewhere off between two trees. ‘Hello?’ she called out, hoping it was someone with a torch, hoping it was Jack. The light didn't reply. It didn't move either. She tried navigating towards it but it seemed to remain a fixed distance from her. Then she noticed a second light further off to her left. ‘Hello?' she called out a second time.

Wind rippled through the trees, almost hissing as it moved between the crackling autumn leaves. She tried to get closer to the lights but they were moving now. Where there'd been two there were now four, then six. The wind whistled again and she imagined the sound was forming into words. “Must go. Leave.” That was what it sounded like, which was ridiculous.

“Must go. Leave. Leave, must go. Leave.”

The wind picked up and so did the voices. They were more distinct and yet had begun to overlap and blend together.

“Leave go must go leave…”

The lights began to flank Gwen on one side, herding her away. She no longer wanted to get any closer to them now that she knew she wasn't imagining the voices. The wind grew stronger, tugging at her hair and her clothes as she stumbled back through the trees, putting more distance between them and her. Even the trees began to menace her as the wind tore through them. Branches cracked and snapped, leaves fell and bits of twig got caught up in flurries of gale force winds, flicking her with their debris. More snagged at her clothes, trying to pull her in different directions, anywhere except where she wanted to go.

She turned on her heel and tried to wend her way through the woods as quickly as she could in the opposite direction. Every now and then she checked over her shoulder but the lights weren't following her. The wind too had died down and was now barely a light zephyr. One thing she knew for sure however was that they hadn't been driving her towards the house. She was even further away than before and hopelessly lost.

She purposefully changed direction, heading ninety degrees right from where she'd been going. She'd just keep going in this one direction as much as she could, praying that there had to be a point where she ran into rural farmland and with luck some actual people.

After what felt like an age, the trees began to thin, revealing more of the clear night sky. She found a break in the tree line and a low drystone wall. She climbed over the wall and her feet met something harder than grass. She nudged it with her toe and realised it was bitumen. A road. Against the backdrop of the night sky she could just make out the dark outline of a small silo on the opposite side of the road. It looked like the road they'd traveled in on.

‘Amazing,’ Gwen, she muttered to herself, ‘couldn't run three miles for charity last year but you've managed to run halfway to the nearest bloody town.’ At least now she knew where she was. Pulling her jacket tighter around her, she began the long march back up the road towards Abercrafen House. She didn't care what strange lights in the forest told her. She wasn't leaving.


	20. Chapter 20

Ianto was going to find Jack. Jack would be down here. Jack would be okay. He couldn't die. But he might need help. Ianto imagined him perhaps tied up and gagged, unable to cry out for help. When he found the people, or whatever, that had done this, he vowed he'd make them pay.

The place was almost pitch black but he could begin to make out some shadowy shapes in the darkness. The more he focused on them, the more they began to form into tangible, identifiable shapes. A broken chair, an upturned crate, buckets and a mop. Things he remembered seeing down here before. He grabbed for the mop, wielding it like a staff in case he needed to defend himself against anything. It felt better having some kind of weapon than nothing at all.

More and more things began to take shape. There was a faint glow emanating from the boiler grille that cast some items into sharp relief and others into shadow. He might have sobbed in relief that his vision was returning were it not for the fact that it was almost beginning to reveal the floor of the cellar which was missing one crucial thing. Jack.

If he'd had a stack of bibles he'd have sworn he thought Jack was down here. He'd smelled him. More than that, he'd heard someone down here. He hadn't imagined that. He'd heard their rasping breaths, their chattering of teeth. Although that in itself was odd. With the boiler down here, it was actually reasonably warm. It was probably the warmest place in the house, being such a confined space.

A thud of wood against wood made him turn on the spot. A second more distinct sound of a heavy meal key turning in a lock drove every other thought from his mind. He dropped the mop in an instant and bolted up the steep steps whereupon he found the door now shut and bolted against him.

‘Hey!’ He pummeled the door with his palms, continuing to yell at whoever was on the other side. There was no handle for him to tug, no latch he could move. And of course there bloody wasn't, his mind screamed, because who needed a handle on the inside of a door that would never be shut against you!

He gave up beating against the door when it became apparent that no one could hear him, or whoever had locked him in here in the first place was ignoring his cries. He leaned his head against the wood for a moment, cursing his own stupidity. When he pulled it back, he wiped the back of his hand across it and down his face, removing a thin sheen of sweat. It struck him as odd. He didn't sweat very much, not even when Jack had him utterly spent after several hours of very physical lovemaking. Out of breath, yes, but it took a lot to get him lathered up.

He turned around and leaned his back against the door, rolling up his sleeves. It really was getting ridiculously warm down here. It had been so cold down here earlier. He plodded back down the steps, just barely illuminated from below.

The boiler was a monstrous looking thing, all hard cast iron and brick. It had three heavy grates, one large one at the base and two smaller ones above it on either side, making it look like a huge sad face. That face glowed with a strong orange light now, brighter than before. The metal basket sitting beside it had been full to overflowing with chocks of wood to feed it, which he and Jack had diligently carted in from the stockpile by the side of the house. Now the basket lay empty. Someone had forced all of the wood into the boiler and it was beginning to burn fiercely. Too fiercely.

He looked around for the metal shovel that had been used to put the wood into the grille before, but it was missing. As was, he began to realise, pretty much anything that might have been of use in helping to remove some of the fuel load. Everything he looked at was either made of wood or something else flammable.

A trickle ran down the center of his spine as sweat accumulated beneath his clothes. He felt more beading on his forehead and the clammy uncomfortable feeling as he pulled his collar away from his neck. It felt like the room had doubled in temperature in just a few minutes. He wiped his brow again and fished around in the piles of abandoned junk. He picked up the mop again, turning it around and using the end to flip open the main boiler door. He wished he hadn't as the heat of the furnace within came radiating out, hitting him in the face and sucking the air dry with its heat. It was like looking into the jaws of hell itself.

He tried to swallow but his mouth and throat were already parched. Staying down here was not going to be pleasant. He jogged back up the steps and shoulder charged the door, hoping to force it open, but it was solidly bolted in place and his body just bounced off it, nearly sending him tumbling all the way back down the stairs. He managed to stop himself just in time. Instead he tried bracing his hands against the stone walls, kicking out at any spot where the hinges might be weakened with age and rust.

‘Son of a bitch!’ he swore, giving it one last hard kick to nil effect. A salty bead of sweat rolled down into his eye and made it sting. The irony of it wasn't lost on him. ‘I really don't get paid enough for this.’ He dropped down onto the steps and buried his head against his knees, trying to find a breath in the oppressively hot air. Hot air rises, he knew, but he couldn't be bothered moving further down. It didn't seem like it would be any cooler down there sitting right next to a sweltering furnace.

There was a snap and then a crackle. He almost didn't notice it, but suddenly the glow from the furnace was brighter. A mass of bright orange and yellow flame was lighting up the room. Not just lighting it up, but burning it up. There was a whump! as flames danced from one spot to another, igniting a large canvas cloth that had been covering broken furniture. Oh, God! A piece of burning wood must have tumbled out of the overfilled furnace hatch. The space was quickly becoming a ball of orange light as more items were licked by flame, catching alight and spreading to more areas.

There was no way to stamp it out. Too much was already on fire and thick black smoke was beginning to fill the room, searching for any way out. It traveled quickly up the narrow steps and filled the space around him, even as the heat intensified.

Ianto beat against the door for all he was worth. ‘Help! Somebody help! Please!’ Black smoke began to choke his words, blurring everything as it thickened around him. Flames were engulfing the room below him and he didn't know if they could travel up the stone steps and walls to meet him, but he guessed he would surely suffocate first.

He began screaming Jack's name over and over again, panicking and not knowing what else to do. In his head he desperately pleaded that Jack might sweep in at the last possible moment. That was what he did, be the hero, save the day. If ever Ianto needed saving it was now.

He yelled between heaving coughs until he felt his fist against the door growing less and less effective, finally forgetting to beat altogether as he dropped to his side whilst the rest of him slumped against the door and slid to the ground, tumbling several steps down even as he lost all conscious awareness.


	21. Chapter 21

Jack wasted a good long time testing out various combinations of going up and down the stairs, trying to find a way out of this particular spatial bubble he found himself in. Each time he attempted it however, he always ended up somewhere else in the house - just nowhere that wasn't on the first floor. He’d been dumped in just about every room at least three times, the hallways and landing on a number of occasions, and was wondering at what point he might find himself locked on the wrong side of a wardrobe door.

‘What is it they say about the definition of insanity?’ he muttered, stepping back down that last fateful step once more and winding up facing the bathroom window, looking out over the twisted laneway leading to the entrance and the outline of the SUV parked right outside. He looked down and found his boots lodged in an inch deep pool of blood that he very seriously did not want to think about, particularly when it could very well belong to one of his team. He shook the thought away. There was too much of it. Someone would be well and truly dead to have spilled that much, and their body would not just have upped and taken off without it.

‘Not dealing with a vampire at least,’ he mused. Those Romanians had really put him off travelling to that part of the world. He was literally the walking talking version of the all you can eat buffet, and whilst he wasn’t usually opposed to offering himself up for someone to have a taste, or even a bit of a nibble, there was fun and then there was just plain greed.

He stepped out of the bathroom and headed back down the hall for the umpteenth time, carefully navigating all the dislodged items littering the hallway. It might have been more efficient for him to just move them all out of the way, but he didn’t plan on spending the rest of his days stuck wandering around in the dark, having to avoid them. If he broke an ankle tripping over one of them, well, it would be his own stupid fault.

Reaching the top of the stairs he checked his watch against his vortex manipulator. Both kept perfect time normally, but now he noticed how his watch was almost a minute faster than his wrist strap, which kept track of his place in exact space time, rather than relative Earth time. It was puzzling. ‘Hang around here long enough, Jack, and maybe you’ll get to meet yourself.’ At least that would give him alternative ways to pass the time. All he had to do was convince his past future self to quit while he was ahead, or was it behind? He groaned inwardly. He used to have this kind of thing down pat. Talk about rusty.

He ran up and down the stairs at speed a few times, before zipping back down them and almost leaping off the end of the very last step. Just as ever he was back at the top of them, bent over with his hands on his knees catching his breath. ‘Okay, so no going downstairs, I think I get the message. Doesn't mean I like it, but okay.’

On a whim he wandered into the main bedroom, where the cold night air was seeping into the room courtesy of the broken window. Who or what had broken it still wasn’t clear, but it looked very much like something had made an escape out of it and that gave him an epiphany.

He'd had crazier ideas, he had to admit, climbing up onto the cabinet under the window and kicking out a few of the jagged shards to make the hole a little bit bigger and a little less deadly. Impaled on glass or having your jugular ripped open was never pleasant and now wasn't the time to revisit that particular method of death, or serious injury at least.

He reached for the drapes on the left hand side which were still hanging, albeit very loosely, from the curtain rod that was about one good tug from coming away altogether from its bracket. He wrapped a length of the thick material around his arm and gave himself an appraising look. ‘If Tarzan can do it in nothing more than a leopard print loincloth…’ He threw himself forward, bracing himself for the possibly painful landing. It came quicker than he expected, and a lot softer too. He hadn't landed on hard flagstones at all - or been belted by a curtain rod that followed him out through the window - but rather into a soft layer of duvet and pillows. Looking around he realised he was lying under the large poster bed, sunken into its softness. ‘Oh, come on! Seriously? I want out of this. Specifically, I'd like to know where my friends are. How come they're not trapped up here with me?’ He checked his vortex manipulator again but it had nothing useful to report.

He flopped back on the pillows, frustrated. Nothing around here made any sense. First something outside tried to kill him, and now something inside wanted to keep him right where he was. ‘How about I just stay here?’ he asked out aloud. ‘Catch up on some zzzs?’ He closed his eyes but he had no intention of sleeping, only of leaving himself alone with his thoughts as he tried to mull things over. It would be great if Gwen and Ianto could just burst through the door right now and accuse him of lying on the job whilst they did all the work. Again. Didn’t they always?

As far as problems went, he supposed this wasn’t the worst one to have. It was certainly better than his previous one. He wasn’t frozen for a start. He pushed himself back up off the bed and began prowling around the house. He couldn’t explain it but something felt different now. Like there was someone always two steps behind him, watching over his shoulder. Watching him. Waiting for something.

He walked back towards the study. Perhaps there was something in there that would provide a clue. Someone might have kept diaries or letters of the things that went on here. As he rounded the corner and stepped into the hallway, he saw that the door to the study was closed. He wrapped a hand around the brass knob but it wouldn’t budge. It hadn’t been locked before but now it was shut against him. He tried the next door along - the bedroom- but it too was now shut and wouldn't open. In fact, all the doors were now locked, except for the master bedroom. He was beginning to feel like a mouse in a maze, only he wasn't interested in the cheese.

He heard a sound more terrifying than any ghost or spectral vision. A sudden scream cut through the otherwise eerie silence. He knew that voice, the sound of his lover screaming. It turned his blood to ice. Those were not the screams of someone in pain. Those were screams of absolute terror and desperation, of life hanging in the balance.

Jack ran for the stairs, flying down them three at a time. He forced his way off the final step with such force that when he arrived back at the top, he tumbled head over heels all the way back down again.

‘Ianto!’ he yelled, praying the man could hear him and know help was on its way. He ran back up the stairs, trying to break down every last door for a way out of this spatial lock, spurred on by the horror in those pleas for help. Kick and shove as he might, not a single door yielded. Even the master bedroom was barred to him now. He rushed back to the landing and paused only for a second and the most desperate idea entered his mind. He checked the distance over the balustrade. Not enough to kill him, just enough to hurt a little as he vaulted recklessly over it and out into the empty space.

A split second later and he should have landed painfully on the parquet floors. Instead he felt himself jolted in mid air. Something caught around his neck, solid and unyielding, like a heavy rope. His hands flew to grasp at it but though he could feel it tightening around his neck, his hands met nothing but empty air. He struggled and flailed, but there was nothing he could do to release its grip on his neck, crushing his adam's apple and cutting off his ability to breathe. The more he struggled the tighter the invisible rope clenched but it was impossible to do anything else as he gagged against it, clawing uselessly. He could just barely make out the continued screams from Ianto until they fell horribly silent, and then Jack lost his own fight as the spots dancing in front of him turned to a solid black.


	22. Chapter 22

Gwen tucked her hands under her armpits in a bid to stop the chill from seeping into them. The night had turned remarkably cold without a cloud in the sky to trap any of that warmth from the earlier autumnal sunshine. The adrenaline had worn off and now she was left with nothing but steely determination to keep her going. Her shoulder ached and her breath clouded in little puffs in front of her face.

She must have walked a mile before something dark and black appeared up ahead on the road. It was almost impossible to see it but as she squinted she discerned the shadow moving. At first she thought it might be the creature from the house, still looking for her after she'd dashed into the woods to escape it. She stopped completely on the road, not making a sound. She listened for the noise of its heavy, rasping breathing but there was none. There were footsteps, measured and regular, and now the faintest sound of… whistling?

Monsters didn't whistle. And to imagine there was a hitch-hiker on the road at this late hour was madness. You could probably stand out here all day long and not a single car would pass by. And where would they go? There was nothing else at the end of this road except for Abercrafen House. If they wanted to go somewhere, they were headed in completely the wrong direction.

Assured that the shadow ahead of her could only be another person, she quickened her pace to catch up with them. She'd take her chances and hope this wasn't some homicidal local nutter out for a midnight stroll.

It didn't take long to catch up. Gwen hoped the sound of her footsteps preceding her call would be enough not to startle them. ‘Hello?’ she called out. ‘Who's there?’

The figure stopped and turned around. Gwen caught the tiniest flash of white just below the person's head. Another step closer and she could make out the face in the dark and the black and white collar that marked his profession. ‘Father Michael?’

‘Hello. It's Gwen, isn't it?’ Strangely he didn't seem the least bit surprised to suddenly have company on the empty road.

‘What are you doing out here?’

‘I couldn't sleep. There was something deeply wrong. I could feel  
it in my bones. Some danger. Something up there,’ he said, gesturing vaguely up the lane towards the house. ‘I knew I couldn't wait until morning.’

Gwen had to admire the man for his instincts and resolve. ‘You came out walking all alone on an empty road in the middle of the night? That's a little mad.’

He gave her a congenial smile. ‘I did a lot of mad things back in the day when I was knocking around Cardiff with Jack. Walking an empty road at night barely scratches the surface. But what are you doing out here?’

‘Well, you may be right about something being very wrong in that house,’ she confessed. ‘But can we walk and talk?’

He frowned as he studied her, but fell into step beside her. She tried not to walk too fast, remembering that a seventy year old man was unlikely to be able to match the pace of a woman in her early thirties, let alone one anxious to get back and help her friends. ‘You look hurt,’ he said.

She shrugged it off, absently rubbing her shoulder without realising it. ‘I've had worse.’

‘What happened? What did you see?’

Gwen frowned, unsure she could put it into words. She'd seen so many things in her life that nothing should surprise her or be beyond explaining. There was something about this creature though. She'd felt it sap the courage right out of her.

‘A thing. Creature, alien, I'm not really sure. It was all shadows and smoke and thorns. It was like nothing I've ever seen before. It seemed to change and morph like it didn't really have a true shape at all.’ She supposed perhaps that was how people had mistaken it for some kind of ethereal being or ghost. It had frightened her enough to flee from it and she'd seen plenty of terrifying things. The average person stood no chance. No wonder they hadn't stayed long.

‘And there were these lights,’ Gwen continued to explain, glad she could at least tell someone about it, ‘apparitions maybe, in the forest. I thought I saw one earlier, from the kitchen window looking out over the graveyard, but there were dozens of them. I thought I could hear voices inside them, telling me to leave, to go away. It was like they didn't want us there and were trying to chase us away.’

‘Forces of dark and light,’ Father Michael mused. ‘But why are you here so far away?’

‘We got separated. I can't help but think it wanted us split apart. Picking us off one by one?’

‘Jack?’

She gave an involuntary shudder. ‘I don't know. He can't die, but I suppose you know that already.’

He inclined his head knowingly. ‘Only too well. And your other friend?’

Gwen shook her head. ‘That's why I have to get back there. I don't know what it is or how we fight it, but we'll think of something.’

‘You don't think we should call for help?’

Gwen expressed mirth at the suggestion. ‘Who should we call? The police?’ She paused, realising how cynical she must sound. ‘Sorry,’ she apologised. ‘You must think I'm mad. It's just, I don't know who would believe us. This is what we do for a living - solve the mysteries that no one else is ready to understand.’

‘Torchwood,’ Father Michael stated. ‘I know all about Torchwood. I thought by now you must have solved all the mysteries of this world.’

She repressed a grin. ‘It's not this world that's the problem. It's all the other worlds out there.’

‘The magnificence of the creator's grand universe.’

‘Not sure you'd describe it that way if you faced some of what we did. Don't get me wrong. It's brilliant, but it's terrible as well. You see the very best and the very worst of humanity.’ She didn't have to go far to find the very worst, humans exploiting innocent aliens that ended up here, or just hurting them for the fun of it. Those were the days she hated the job. But for every one of those there was a day of wonder, of delight, of a laugh with her two best friends as they navigated the absurdity of alien life in all its many forms.

‘I understand,’ he said. She wasn't sure he did but she let it slide. Jack trusted this man and that was good enough for her. She'd take whatever help she could get.


	23. Chapter 23

Jack gasped as air rushed into his lungs. He rolled over onto his side and sucked in great lungfuls of air as the choking sensation around his neck was finally gone, relishing the delight that some much needed oxygen brought back his sense of awareness. He felt the rush of life running through his veins more acutely than usual. Every death was different and some were always harder to come back from than others. Those where he'd fought tooth and nail until the very end were the hardest and most shocking. Sometimes coming back to life almost felt like an extension of dying, as if it were never a sure thing. He grabbed it with both hands and clung to it lest it slip away from him.

He lay curled over on his side breathing in and out deeply until he could get that simple act of living under control. There were no warm arms and soothing voice to ease his distress. There was no easy way to come to terms with that lack of comforting presence. It dropped him back into reality like cold water poured over him. Ianto… Those screams of terror. He pushed himself to his knees, feeling the worn parquetry beneath his palms. It dawned on him where he was. He'd somehow broken through whatever had been keeping him trapped. Though it had cost him, he knew it was worth it.

He got to his feet, about to head straight for the source of those terrified cries for help when something blocked his path. At first he thought he must have been still suffering from a lack of oxygen to his brain because it was dark and indistinct, blurred edges in his vision. It felt like the room was filling with a thick black smoke and then it slowly began to coalesce, forming a tall shape that was terrible to look upon. The thing was still smoke at the edges but large and humanoid with jagged curved blades that seemed to protrude all over its body. Jack felt that same bitter cold seep into his bones as the thing got closer. Its breath was putrid and reeked of death and decay as Jack held up an arm to his face.

The thing stopped just short of him, towering several feet over Jack's stature. A face began to form from within the empty blackness and the face was distinctly human.

‘Hello, Jack,’ it said.

Jack's face twisted in confusion. ‘You… How do you know my name? What do you want? Where are my friends?’

The face of the man within the cloud of black looked sad. Jack would have said it was the face of a man in his fifties - a face lined with creases borne from a hard life. Though he was all muted shades of grey and black, his beard was trim, dotted with salt and pepper but it was the eyes that grabbed Jack's attention. They were, or had been, blue, and still had light and life left in them. They burned with an intensity as they studied him.

‘You don't remember, do you?’

Jack's heart skipped a beat as he mutely shook his head.

‘You wanted to know about the man who died here, but you knew him already.’

‘Thomas Morgan?’ Jack shook his head. ‘I never knew him. I don't know who he is. No one does.’ He took a stab in the dark. ‘It's you, isn't it? You're Thomas.’

‘I wasn't always. Perhaps I never have been. But I can tell you don't remember me.’

He closed his eyes and Jack watched the way the face began to change. The lines began to fade and the skin smoothed itself out. The beard retracted back into that younger looking skin and hair on his head even began to show a little colour - a deep chocolate brown. The eyes opened again, they were bright blue, and the face at once tugged sharply on Jack's memory. It was the face of a man thirty years younger. He knew those eyes. He'd always noticed the eyes before anything else and these ones he remembered well. He could barely get the name out as his throat constricted in awe and shock. ‘Gil?’

There was a tiny flash of a smile on that youthful face at the final recognition. ‘Hello, Jack. It's been a very long time but I'm glad you're here now. Everything is going to be okay.’

Jack stuttered through his own disbelief at the thing standing before him. So many decades had passed since he'd last seen that face, and seeing it now beggared belief. ‘You can't be here,’ Jack finally said. ‘You were in prison. You killed a man.’

‘I was found at the scene of a man who had died,’ Gil clarified, his voice calm and unaffected. ‘There's a difference.’

‘That's not what the police reports said.’ He could picture the crime scene photographs like it was only yesterday. Sixteen separate stab wounds from a kitchen knife, blood everywhere, the victim lying in a huge pool of it on the bathroom floor. For years it was billeted as the most violent crime to have occurred in Cardiff. ‘You stabbed a man to death in your own house. A university professor emeritus, no less.’

‘It was self defence.’

Jack shook his head vehemently. ‘Neighbours saw you invite him inside. And you had no defensive wounds. That's murder.’

‘He was going to suspend me from the college for alleged homosexual practices!’ The ghostly face twisted sharply in anger. ‘He was going to tell the whole board. My reputation would have been destroyed.’

‘That's discrimination. We could have fought it.’

The spectre waved away Jack's protests. ‘It doesn't matter. All of that is in the past now. I didn't murder him. I don't even remember it. But I was glad he was dead, our secret preserved. I did my time for it.’

Jack swallowed down his awe. ‘They let you out?’

‘Parole. Don't think I was exonerated for mental incapacity. I had to earn it. Twenty years is a long time to serve for keeping your secrets, Jack.’

Jack scowled at the accusation. ‘It wasn't my secrets you were protecting. I was never ashamed of who I was.’

‘Neither was I until I met you.’

Jack felt his jaw clench at the hypocrisy. ‘So it's okay to be gay so long as you do it on your own?’

Gil took a step forward and Jack involuntarily took a step back to maintain the distance between them. ‘I don't want to fight with you. Please.’

Jack huffed a breath. ‘So what? You got out and moved up here to live out your days as a hermit?’

‘I bought the house under a false name.’

Jack rolled his eyes. ‘Right. Because there's loads of Thomas Morgan's but only one homicidal, highly publicised Gil Roberts.’ He scratched the back of his head whilst he considered how it was possible to be talking to a dead man embodied in this terrifying black creature. ‘The police must have known it was you when they came to investigate your suicide, assuming you did kill yourself. They would have taken fingerprints to identify the body. They must have quashed the records, or at least let the death be recorded formally, but the name on the headstone was left as a fake.’ Jack shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘I guess they didn't want people coming up here to desecrate the grave.’

‘What they do with my body is of no concern to me anymore.’

‘Why all this then? Terrifying the people who have tried to live here? Is this your way of getting back at the world? Was this to get my attention?’

‘We didn't know you would come until you had arrived.’

Jack paused over the unusual choice of words. ‘We?’

‘The house is haunted, Jack. Many things fill its halls, but only one offered me salvation. It saw who I was inside. It didn't fear me. It offered a better way to live.’

‘Death is not living. Believe me, I know.’

‘You don't understand yet, but you will.’


	24. Chapter 24

Gwen had worked up a light sweat by the time they were halfway up the winding lane. She hadn't noticed before the way it snaked uphill between the straggling beeches and firs. She cast a glance at Father Michael who was, to his credit, keeping pace well for a man of his vintage, but even Gwen could tell he was beginning to flag. She gently took him by the elbow. ‘Almost there,’ she said, hoping it was encouraging, rather than what it probably was - walking straight back into the lion's den, dragging him into danger.

‘Should've asked you earlier, Father, but do you believe in ghosts?’

‘Who but the dead can say how long or brief the journey into heaven is.’

‘I'll take that as a maybe.’

Gwen might have laughed or cried in relief at the sight of the SUV still parked outside the large stone house as it came into view. Even on a moonless night it gleamed with a promise of salvation. She pawed at the driver side door handle, confirming her suspicions that it remained locked.

She looked around the overgrown cottage gardens, running a discerning eye over them before walking over to one particular bed and leaning down. Her hands wrapped around the warped wooden plinth that was meant to be holding the soil in. As she pulled it loose, more of the garden bed fell out onto the gravel path, no longer held in place by the three foot hunk of timber.

‘What are you planning on doing with that, my dear?’

Gwen strode around to the back of the car, hefting the thick timber over her shoulder even though it hurt like hell. ‘What does it look like?’ she replied. ‘Breaking into the company car.’ Don't balls this up, Gwen, she told herself, already feeling the rough wood splinters piercing her hands. You might only get one good swing with that shoulder. She grit her teeth and threw everything into it, roaring as the end of the wood smashed through the tinted black glass. She dragged the heavy wood left and right, clearing out the jagged pieces of safety glass that clung to the window frame before finally dropping the wood with a grunt of relief.

‘There we are,’ she said, feeling good about herself despite her pain. Ianto could take his triple deadlock system and shove it. Nothing beats a good old fashioned Welsh smash and grab.

She reached in with her left hand and began pawing through the boxes neatly stored inside. There were only two that interested her and the first had a green cross on it and all the good drugs inside. She flipped the dual clips on its lid and rifled through until she found the syringe she wanted. She stuck it between her teeth whilst she struggled out of her jacket. Father Michael attempted to help her get it off. She didn't waste any time pulling down the shoulder of her cotton top and sticking herself. It stung like mad but it would be worth it in a few minutes. She slipped her jacket back on and roughly pulled her hair out of her face.

‘Right. Now we can get ourselves some guns,’ she declared, reaching back inside the SUV and directing her attention to her favourite metal container. God alone knew what kind of gun could stop a ghostly entity but an automatic with alien augmentation and a thirty round clip was a decent starting point.

‘I'm afraid my days of violence are well behind me, Gwen. The only protection I have is that of the cross.’

‘Then best you stay behind me,’ Gwen warned him, ‘because I have a tendency to shoot anything that moves in a situation like this. Here, at least take this,’ she said, handing him one of their standard issue stun guns. ‘It's not a gun. Well, I mean, it is a gun, but it's not designed to kill, only incapacitate.’

Father Michael reluctantly took the proffered weapon. ‘I suppose in the current circumstances such a thing might be overlooked.’

‘There'll be time to ask for forgiveness later.’ She grabbed a torch and discarded the rest of their cache. She'd seen the size of the thing that had confronted her before and one of their portable prison units wasn't going to be nearly big enough if it came to that. ‘Now, come on.’

She rounded the side of the house, switching her beam of light left and right as she navigated the overgrown vegetable gardens.

‘What are you looking for?’

‘Jack,’ she replied plainly. ‘He came out here and didn't come back.’ As much as she wanted to get back inside the house to figure out how the hell they stopped a creature that appeared barely corporeal, she needed better backup than a local priest who should be enjoying his sunset years and not chasing after aliens with her. And where the hell was Ianto?

It didn't take long for her to have searched the entire eastern side of the house, as well as the coal room. There'd been a tiny fragment of hope that maybe Jack had holed himself up inside it, perhaps injured, but it was empty but for the bins of dark brown rock and rusting garden tools.

She moved slowly backwards from the house, trying to take in as much of it, and the surrounding gardens, as she could. Everything out here was quiet and dark. The lights from the figures that had chased her before had disappeared.

She took another step back and something grabbed her from behind. She screamed and spun around, confronted by a seven foot tall creature in ragged clothes and a menacing face. At first she thought it was the monster, but then strong arms grabbed her and held her tight.

‘It's okay,’ Father Michael's soft voice spoke into her ear. ‘It's just a scarecrow. You just backed into it.’

He gently let her go and she lifted her torchlight up to meet it. He was right. Its face was nothing more than stuffed hessian with a crude stitched face and buttons for eyes, and weather worn old clothes that rippled in the breeze. How had she forgotten that was here? Stupid, she chastised herself, letting her fear get the better of her.

‘Well, it did its job,’ she tried to joke. 'Scared half to death by a potato sack and some hand me downs.' She puffed out a breath, trying to quell her pounding heartbeat. If anything was out here she'd either scared it off with her cry or drawn it straight toward them.

She held her gun under her torch and completed a full turn, scanning their position from every angle. Nothing moved and everything was eerily silent. She began to wonder if they were the only two living souls left here. The house remained dark and unyielding against the prussian night sky.

Edging around the wooded area that encircled the house on three sides, the rear of the house came into view. She looked up for the bedroom window where she'd made her escape, looking for any signs the creature was still up there. What she found instead was a window that was perfectly formed, unbroken, the ivy around its edges undamaged and the drapes that had broken her fall no longer hanging in tatters out through the gap. That wasn't possible. She knew she'd broken it and thrown herself from it. Her shoulder could attest to the fall.

‘Gwen,’ came the low voice next to her. ‘Over there,’ said Father Michael, pointing to a small ebbing glow.

Gwen saw the small light and stepped closer to it. She wouldn't run this time. She was going to find out what it was and what it wanted. The closer she got though, the more the light dimmed until it was hardly larger than a palm print, then blinked out altogether. ‘Damn,’ she cursed. She pointed her light around, hoping to coax it back out. ‘Hello? We don't want to hurt you. We just want to talk.’

The light from her torch was temporarily blocked as it hit the side of the thick tree, illuminating letters that had been carved into its trunk. She'd seen this tree before, but it had changed, or maybe it was a different tree altogether. Either way, it troubled her as she touched the letters that read "Gil heart Jack". G. R. heart J. H. She didn't need surnames to know deep down in her gut which Jack was the object of affection. She felt a shiver run down her spine. This wasn't just a haunting anymore. It was personal and Jack was somehow connected to it all.

‘You remember that bad feeling you said you had earlier?’

She saw Father Michael frown in the glow from her torch as he read the words. ‘Yes?’

‘I think you were right.’


	25. Chapter 25

‘I hate how smart you are, sometimes, you know that?’ Jack said, trying to loop his arm around Gil's. The young man deftly evaded him, transferring the large bundle of books he'd been carrying easily under one arm into a two handed cradle in front of his torso. Jack sometimes wondered if Gil loved his books more than he loved Jack.

‘Not here,’ Gil said, walking along the lawns along the front of the large whitewashed sandstone university buildings. It was a beautiful day to be out enjoying the sunshine, not a day to be stuck in some pokey, old smelling room with a pile of books that were older than Jack.

‘When we get to your study, then?’ Jack asked with a hopeful air.

‘At some point I need to finish this thesis,’ came the reply.

‘You don't need a thesis to prove something that's already fact.’ Just because the scientific community wouldn't acknowledge Gil's theories for another forty years didn't seem to make a difference. The man was becoming almost obsessive. It had been mere luck that Jack had happened by when he had, spotting Gil moving between the university library and his office.

‘Just a few minutes,’ Jack pleaded. ‘I feel like I haven't seen you in forever.’

‘I haven't felt like getting out of bed.’

‘I don't have a problem with staying in bed,’ Jack said, trying to make light of the comment. Gil was like that. He suffered from an unknown melancholy that allowed whole days to pass without him eating or sleeping. Jack knew it wasn't healthy but he let Gil have whatever space he needed. This period of depression would pass and he'd go back to being the bright, sparkling young man Jack had fallen head over heels for. The man was so handsome and had an intellect unlike any Jack had ever known. He was someone who would go places, even if he didn't yet know it.

Gil jogged up the steps with such a grace that Jack nearly tripped over his own feet trying to keep up whilst keeping his eyes locked on the man. ‘I feel good today. I want to make the most of it.’

‘You will be,’ Jack assured him. What could be better than locking the door behind them and making love right there between all those books and papers Gil loved so much?

Jack was about to follow him through the door into the tiny study as Gil dropped the pile of books on the desk and turned to face him. ‘Please, Jack. You need to stop coming here.’

Jack frowned. ‘Why?’

There was a furtive glance over his shoulder. ‘People are…’ he leaned his head closer, but not too close. ‘People are starting to think that maybe we're…’

‘We are,’ Jack whispered back. ‘And that's okay.’ It was the eighties. Things were different now. Being with a man wasn't new anymore, wasn't completely taboo.

‘They won't take me seriously if I'm labelled a queer.’

Jack tried not to get angry. It was hard when he'd come from a time and place where it was so irrelevant that it bordered on boring. He hated labels of any kind, but especially the kind they used on this planet.

Jack grit his teeth. ‘I'll stop coming here and following you around,’ he promised. It didn't feel fair. They should be able to have a coffee together or sit out on the lawns discussing the accepted, and even the unaccepted, theories of space time - even if half of what Gil said was the kind of stuff that had made Jack's head spin back in his Time Agency Academy days. He just loved that Gil made his head spin at all. Or hold hands and kiss.

Gil seemed relieved that Jack had conceded. ‘Thank you.’

‘But that means I still want to see you. You can come around to my place any time you want. Tonight. I'll make us dinner. We can share a bottle of wine.’ He knew he shouldn't offer alcohol to a man taking medication to keep his mental wellbeing in check but it felt like perhaps they should let themselves go just for one night.

‘We'll see. I really need to cross reference these notes and run a few more calculations. As soon as I'm done.’ He gave another furtive glance around the otherwise private office and then reached up on tiptoe to kiss Jack on the cheek. Jack tried for more but Gil turned his head away and began ordering his books.

‘I'll see you soon,’ Jack said, gripping the door and wishing he didn't have to leave. ‘I love you.’

Jack didn't hear from Gil for days afterwards. He assumed he was in one of his manic phases, where the excitement of having energy and enthusiasm lead him to work day and night without stopping to even notice the days flying by. He should have stopped by the university to check on him. Then he would have discovered that Gil wasn't there at all, and hadn't been since the afternoon he'd borrowed all of those books, left abandoned on the desk to gather dust. His enthusiasm had lasted mere hours before exhaustion and doubt seeped back in, leading him home to the cold vinyl of his bathroom floor where he lay for days.

If Jack had known it would be the last time he'd ever see Gil, he never would have let him shut that door in his face.


	26. Chapter 26

‘You went off your meds, didn't you? Back in 1983.’ Jack couldn't help himself. He just had to know more about what had gone wrong between them that had caused things to end so tragically. He had to know if his actions had ultimately led to this point.

‘I didn't think I needed them. They made it hard to concentrate on my work. How could I work if I couldn't tell what day it was? When I stopped taking them, it was like a fog finally lifted. I realised I didn't need them to make me feel better. I only needed you. You made me so happy.’

Jack shook his head in disagreement. ‘That's not how I remember it.’ There were times when Jack could barely get the man to speak to him. Other times he raged at Jack for absolutely no reason. Yet none of it stopped Jack from being totally in love with him. Jack assumed that the mood swings were a by-product of such a mind being misunderstood by so many who were unable to see the world the way Gil saw it.

The melancholy drove Jack mad and he wanted to shake it out of the man when it came to linger, causing an insurmountable barrier between them. But then it would disappear, like clouds parting to let through daylight, and in those moments they had been happy. Jack had lived for those moments when the real Gil came out of the shadows. He was the single most brilliant mind Jack had ever known. He was also a troubled soul that just needed someone to love him enough. Jack knew that deep down he could make that sadness go away for good if he just persisted.

‘It wasn't just the depression, was it? Bipolar? A breakdown?’

Gil's smoky aura moved around Jack as he paced, considering the question as if for the first time. ‘The doctors said it was schizophrenia. A psychotic break. There were so many pills, Jack. I scarcely remember most of those years in prison. A decade passed in the blink of an eye. All my best years and hard work stolen away.’

‘And then?’

‘Then I got better. They put me on things that let me think a little bit. People didn't understand it back then. Lock you up and medicate you into oblivion, that was the solution. It took years of the right medications, the endless appointments with psychiatrists. To them I was an experiment. Three long years before they would let me so much as borrow a book to read. Another year before I could have a pen to write with. They wanted me to write down how I felt, what I was thinking. They gave me my first real challenge. How to write what they wanted to hear, appear as if I was staying on an even keel. And then finally the review board let me go. A new identity, a reprieve from a sentence for a crime I was hardly guilty of.’

Jack hardly felt surprised by the admission. Some people he'd met, whilst brilliant, had lacked any emotional quotient. They were awkward in social settings and didn't understand body language or social cues. Gil wasn't like that. He saw everything and understood it. It was just a shame he didn't have the courage to not let the opinions of those less adept dictate how he lived his life. He cared too much about how everyone else felt and ignored his own feelings on the matter.

Jack felt the black haze begin to wrap around him, enclosing him in a screen of smoke. ‘You never came and saw me, Jack.’

Jack tensed, feeling they'd reached a tipping point. ‘You were in a psychiatric unit, Gil. It broke my heart the day you left me standing there outside your door and never came back. I had to find out what happened to you by reading it in the newspaper like everyone else. I refused to believe what they said. I went through every police file and piece of evidence trying to find the truth, but in the end I had to accept it. You killed a man in cold blood. I hated myself for letting you become so broken.’

‘I was broken before you came along.’ Jack felt a wisp of cold air brush his cheek. ‘You were the one good thing.’

Why? Jack thought to himself. Why did he keep screwing up people's lives? ‘When you were released why didn't you try to make contact?’

‘I just wanted to be left alone. People always hated me for one thing or another, for being too smart, too depressed, for being a queer, for being a murderer. I tried to write you a letter a hundred times, to explain that I wasn't the evil person everyone thought I was. I was so alone but I thought about you every single day. Nothing else from my old life brought me joy anymore so I filled the house with art and history and tended the natural world. I did all of that until I couldn't bear the pain of it anymore.’

‘You hung yourself.’ Jack felt his heart breaking over again at the thought of Gil out here all on his own. Prison would have been a nightmare for someone like Gil, intellectually starved and emotionally isolated. Small wonder he'd come out here and spent his days tending garden beds and avoiding human contact. He'd had so much promise to give the world and the world had given him nothing in return.

‘Why all of this?’ Jack finally asked. ‘Why not just show yourself?’

‘I had to find out who you were. What had become of the man I knew. I've seen everything I need to know now.’

‘Wait. You did all this? It was some kind of test? I've been dragging myself around this house trying to figure out why the hell I couldn't get out and it was you?’

‘I wanted you to know what it felt like to be trapped like I had been. To know that the only way out was death. I loved you, but Torchwood always came first.’

‘That's not true,’ he said, knowing it was a lie and that Gil would see straight through it. Torchwood had to come first. Not because Jack wanted it that way, but because he didn't have a choice in the matter. ‘And where are my friends? What have you done with them?’

‘They are near. And getting closer. You'll all be back together soon, I promise. I needed time alone with you first.’

Jack didn't understand the response. Had they gone outside to look for him? Had Gil altered their perceptions as well, leading them by the nose in whatever designs he had for all of them?

Jack tried to come to grips with what he was seeing as the tendrils of Gil’s form moved around him. ‘What are you, now? A ghost? What else is here in this place?’ Gil didn't look anything like what Jack expected the dead might look like if their souls remained behind. Gil was a picture of horror, a face enshrouded in a veil of shadow and hard edges. If Jack hadn't known what he'd been before he'd become this thing, he might have been more frightened. Jack didn't believe in ghosts. He'd dug up bodies from a graveyard on All Hallows Eve in Victorian times and never been troubled by a single spectre. The only things that haunted him were memories and guilt.

‘I'm more than that,’ Gil replied smoothly. ‘And the others shan't bother us. They have not troubled the occupants of this house for a very long time now.’

Jack paused to try and collect his thoughts. ‘Okay, so I get that you're smart enough to be able to warp time and space. Maybe even right down to the atomic level.’ How else to explain the way Jack had been transported around this house without any other intervention? It had been Gil’s life's work, unraveling the very fundamental principles of physics, developing new theories on how the universe worked and was formed. It was revolutionary stuff, concepts that wouldn't be readily accepted until the twenty third century. Now Jack knew why. Because none of Gil's work would ever come to fruition.

Gil’s smoky form unraveled itself from around Jack, becoming more fixed in place as he instead paced around him, like he'd been wont to do when he enjoyed their intellectual debates long ago. ‘Am I? Is that what you saw? Or did I just make you see something and let you believe the rest?’

Jack checked his watch against his vortex manipulator. Both were perfectly in sync once more. He couldn't really have just imagined all of that - the freezing cold, the shifting of the house, corralling him where it wanted him, the death he'd suffered, hung in mid-air like a man over the gallows. He hadn't imagined death.

A smirk played across Gil’s handsome features. ‘How does it feel, Jack? Not knowing what's real and what isn't?’


	27. Chapter 27

Gwen bit down on the desire to feel frustrated. Jack's past was always coming back to haunt them. She just never assumed it would literally haunt them. She briefly wondered on a scale of one to ten, just how much trouble they were in.

‘I don't suppose you know anything about a man called Gil?’ she asked the priest. She was, of course, assuming it was a man. With Jack it so often was. The women in his life were generally less vindictive in her experience. Father Michael shook his head.

‘Right.’ She pulled back the safety on her gun, hearing the satisfying click. ‘We're going inside that house, we're going to find Jack, and Ianto, and we're going to find out what the hell is going on around here and how to stop it.’ She began to march in a straight line towards the house before her nerve failed her.

She'd only gone a few feet when a strange sound erupted out of the nothingness. ‘What is that?’

‘Birds?’ Father Michael offered. It did sound a bit like birds cawing but that was ridiculous. It was the middle of the night.

The sound became louder and less distinct, like it was doubling over on itself, multiplying.

‘Look!’ Father Michael pointed up into the air and Gwen saw what he saw. The sky was becoming darker, transforming from a deep nighttime blue into a sea of black specks, growing closer and closer until Gwen could make out the large black wings and the deafening calls of hundreds of ravens. It was a flock unlike anything she'd ever seen. It blacked out the sky and then it began to descend in the most awful cacophony of shrieks and squawks.

‘Get down!’ she cried as the birds flocked and swooped on the pair of them. Wings flapped loudly and their cawing filled the air in a thunderous racket. Gwen threw her hands over her head as she curled into the smallest shape she could. Sharp claws and beaks pecked and scratched at her arms and shoulders and the wind beat around her as their wings disrupted the very air surrounding them. Her head pounded from the sheer noise. They dived into her at speed, inflicting whatever damage they could. She couldn't move to flap them away because they didn't give her an inch of space to move from where she was huddled. She couldn't even get her gun up to loose off a few shots in the hopes it would startle them and make them disperse.

It felt like an eternity that the crazed birds swooped and assailed them, but finally they lifted and the enormous black flock ascended once more into the air, disappearing over the horizon.

Gwen crawled over to Father Michael, who was cowered against a large headstone that had at least protected the elderly man from the worst of their attack. ‘Are you okay?’ He nodded, visibly shaken by the assault, but other than a few bleeding scratches, appeared to be okay. ‘Where the hell did they all come from?’

The cleric shook his head, equally mystified. ‘I don't know. It was like they rode in on the wings of Satan himself.’

‘Let's not wait for them to decide to come back for another go.’ She helped him back to his feet and stepped over to where her gun and torch had been dropped and rolled away during the attack. The torchlight beam shone brightly in the darkness, illuminating a mound of freshly turned earth. Gwen frowned at it. That wasn't right. There were no new graves here. She'd checked them all. When she looked up at the headstone where her torchlight directed itself, she gasped at the inscription.

Jones. Unknown - 2009.

No. No, no, no, no! It couldn't be. It just couldn't. Her heart began to thud a million miles an hour as panic set in. She dropped to her knees and grabbed the torch, searching for any signs that her intuition was completely wrong.

‘No!’ she cried, beginning to sweep away huge handfuls of the loose earth. Ianto wasn't dead. He couldn't be. They must have overwhelmed him, buried him alive. She'd last seen him only a few hours ago. He could still be down there, running out of air. There was still time, she told herself. Time to get him out and save him.

Her fingers bit into the dirt, pulling it away as fast as she could. She ignored the way the dirt lodged under her nails, tearing them away right down to the quick. All that mattered was getting to the bottom and freeing Ianto. How long did he have until he ran out of air? Hours? Minutes? Was he dead already? It didn't matter. ‘Help me get him out!’ she begged the priest. He got down on arthritic knees and began scraping away the dirt beside her.

The pair of them made light work of removing the upper mound of dirt that still clung loosely and then began to dig away at the more firmly packed earth beneath it. Gwen's mind reeled as she wondered how far down they'd have to dig. There couldn't have been time to dig anything more than a shallow grave, two or three feet at most. Who had dug it and where they were now didn't matter. She just had to get him out.

Gwen didn't pause until she noticed the slowing of Father Michael's efforts. The poor old man wouldn't be able to keep this up for long but she had to keep him going as long as she could. Ianto was counting on them. When he stopped altogether she looked up.

‘Gwen,’ he said, his voice low and awestruck.

She hadn't noticed them before, but now there was a white glow surrounding them. Dozens of lights, not dissimilar to the ones that had pursued her in the forest now lingered by the headstones all around them. They glowed with sad expressions on their ghostly faces.

‘What are they?’ Father Michael said, his voice barely a whisper. ‘Spirits? Angels?’

‘I don't care,’ Gwen said, returning to her digging. That was all she had energy to worry about. Let them come and attack her but she wasn't going to stop. They'd have to kill her first.

'There were some old tools in that coal room by the house,' she said. It would take an age to dig him out with just their bare hands. They needed a faster way. ‘Go see if you can find a shovel or something. Hurry!’ she barked, watching him struggle to his feet and rush back toward the house.

She tried not to think about Ianto being trapped down there, so close and yet unable to reach him yet- how dark and terrifying it would be. ‘Just hold on!’ Gwen yelled, praying Ianto could hear her. ‘We're coming!’

We're coming, she repeated in her head, making it a firm promise.


	28. Chapter 28

Ianto was surprised to wake up, let alone to have done so in an upright position. His head was pressed against something firm and wooden, which had left a distinct imprint of its wooden grain against the skin of his forehead. He could feel its ridges as he rubbed the spot.

A cramped leg protested as he moved it out from under where he'd slumped down on it, wedged against the sharp edge of the stone step. He was still by the cellar door.

He coughed at the dry, grainy feeling in his throat. He was alive. How was he alive? He should have burned to a crisp or at least asphyxiated, but here he was. He drew in a deep breath, trying to dislodge the cough from his throat. The air didn't smell the least bit smokey. It had that same damp, mildewy odour from before.

He licked his lips to wet them with what little moisture was in his mouth. They tasted salty like sweat, but there was no hint of charcoal. He should have been black all over from the soot but even in the almost pitch black of the cellar, he could still just make out the pale white of his hands as he held them up in front of his face.

He ran a finger down the wall and sniffed it. It too had no smell of burnt or smoke. That wasn't possible. There'd been so much smoke it had choked him to the point where he couldn't breathe. He ran his hands over his face. He could feel them rub away the sweaty residue that had caked on his face. He had been hot. He had sweated, so why was there no other evidence of it?

He pulled himself up on shaky legs, keeping one hand pressed to the rough stone as he guided his way down the treacherous steps. A late moon must have risen outside because its pallid light cast a glow through the narrow window above the boiler. At the foot of the steps he found the mop he'd discarded, and by the wall the pile of damaged furniture still draped in its canvas covering. It had all been alight and should have been ash by now, yet everything was just as it had been.

He bent down to pick up the mop handle. It felt sturdy and solid in his hands. The boiler was no longer glowing orange. He pressed a hand first to the outer brickwork and then straight over the large central metal grille. It was cold like stone. Not even warm like it had burned itself out, let alone been red hot, engulfed in fire.

He couldn't have imagined all of it. He wasn't mad. He knew what he'd seen and what he'd felt. It was real. And even if he had hallucinated some of it, the boiler should still be lit, or at least cooling. A huge thing like this would take at least a day once its flame was extinguished. He knew for certain that he and Jack had got it going and that neither of them had been down here since. None of it made sense. In fact, nothing had made any sense since the minute they'd arrived here. He was beginning to think that nothing he'd seen or experienced had been real, only what this place had wanted him to see.

The door at the top of the steps began to rattle. Thank Christ, he thought, moving towards the stairs. ‘Yes! Down here!’ he called out, imagining Jack or Gwen on the other side, trying to force the door open. He didn't care how they knew he was down here, only that he was getting out.

He waited for their voices to call back to him, asking him if he was okay. ‘Yes, I'm fine,’ he replied, more to himself than anyone else. ‘Sort of. Apart from the fact that this whole place is fucking mental. Let's just get out of here, yeah?’ He wanted to go home and leave this place behind, mystery solved or not. Back home there was coffee, a hot shower, a comfy sofa and Jack. Not necessarily in that order.

The door rattled more forcefully, like whoever was on the other side was having a hard time of getting it open. He climbed up the steps and pressed his hands to the door. ‘Have you got the key?’ he yelled through the thick timber. ‘In the lock there should be a key. A big heavy thing. It might have fallen out. Check the floor.’

The door shook and shuddered but there was no reassuring voice on the other side. A horrible thought occurred to him that he hadn't yet considered. He'd just assumed there was someone friendly waiting on the other side. It only occurred to him now that the lack of reply was a sign that there was something very unfriendly there. It knew he was here and it was desperate to get inside.

The door jolted hard and Ianto threw himself away from it, clinging to the rough stone wall. He backed down the steps, keeping his eyes glued to the door.

It was almost bulging as it shuddered on its hinges, whatever it was desperately trying to force its way inside. He thought the wood would splinter and explode from the way it bent inwards, about to break at any moment, but for now it held, if only just.

He grabbed whatever he could from the piles of discarded furniture, wedging them against the door and hurriedly piling the rest haphazardly on the steps. He didn't think for a second it would stop whatever it was, but he could at least slow it down. Slow it down for what, he wondered, grabbing the mop and arming himself with it. There was no way out of here.

His eyes were completely adjusted to the dark now, able to see all that he could, but it was the small sliver of light from the window that grabbed his attention. No. He'd never fit through it. It was ten inches tall at best even if it was two feet wide.

The door cracked and heaved as the thing started charging at it repeatedly. He surely only had a minute more before it finally gave way. He looked at the window again. Only one way out of here now. God, but he had to try, didn't he?

He lifted the end of the mop over his head and forced it through the glass, hearing it shatter. He pounded at the frame until he'd smashed all of the glass free. He grabbed for the top of the boiler’s square brick edifice, trying to pull himself up on top of it. His shoes scrabbled against the bricks, trying to add leverage.

At the right angle it would have been extremely difficult. Trying to climb up and over the boiler to get up on top of it to try and squeeze his way through was bordering on impossible. The space between the top of it and the roof was hardly taller than the window itself. He couldn't get more than his head and shoulders over the end of the brickwork, knowing he'd have to pull himself the rest of the way.

His arms went out through the gap first, trying to sweep away the broken shards. He pushed up with his feet, managing to get his head out, somehow managing not to tear open his jugular and forcing shoulders through the gap as well.

He felt the bite of the glass as it tore at his clothes and knicked his tender skin. His hands found more shards on the ground as he hauled himself further forward. He'd survive a few deep scratches. It was the thing behind him that he was less certain about.

His worst fears were realised when he squirmed and found the top and bottom edges of the frame wedged tightly against his back and stomach, pinning him in place. ‘Fuck!’

He clawed at the ground in front of him, trying to find anything he could get purchase on. Weeds and straggler plants came away in his hands as he grabbed at them. Even the thicker looking grasses that had taken root around the edge of the house slipped through his hands and bit into them, scoring his palms like razor blades.

He kicked and flailed, desperate to pull himself loose. I swear I'll never eat another donut again! I won't even look at one! his mind screamed, even if he knew he was just about as trim as he could be. Anything less and Jack would have teased him before stating that he thought Ianto's pudginess was kind of sexy.

He struggled for what felt like an eternity, waiting for something to grab him by the legs and drag him back inside. One knee was bent awkwardly between the boiler and the opposite wall and he pushed out with it as hard as he could, finally feeling his body move in the gap and wriggling his hips and the rest of him through and out into freedom. A yelp of relief escaped his lips as he crawled away and got to his feet. He was out!

He kicked out at the pile of wood by the side of the house, causing the whole carefully stacked pile to tumble and cascade across the opening, sliding down into a heavy mass that blocked it completely. He leaned back against the side of the coal house, breathing hard and closing his eyes as he thanked God he was still alive.


	29. Chapter 29

Jack felt his frustration rising inside him, about to boil over. He'd entertained Gil, heard his story, felt his own guilt at the part he'd played in it, but now it was time to stop playing games and get to the bottom of this whole situation. He wanted out of this madhouse, so that he could go back to his life in Cardiff and leave his past behind him.

‘Where are they?’ Jack repeated. ‘Gwen and Ianto. I need to know that they're okay.’

Gil came to stand before him, his almost monochrome face leaning down to become as close to Jack's as he could. ‘They are here. Unharmed. I may have given them a little fright, perhaps. It's hard sometimes,’ he explained. ‘The dark thoughts that I used to have manifest themselves in strange ways. You might call them a haunting experience.’

Jack felt himself coil like a spring, alert to the heightened sense of danger all around him. He didn't doubt for a second that Gil wasn't in control of his… abilities. He'd proven to Jack that he could manipulate anything he wanted. If he wanted to cause pain and fear, he could. Were his schizophrenic tendencies really to blame, or just a convenient excuse?

‘Your lover. You are quite fond of him. As you were me once. I've been watching you all night long.’ The words made a chill run down Jack’s spine. They were so innocent and yet malicious at the same time.

Jack's fists balled at his sides. ‘What have you done with him? I swear, if you've hurt him at all…’

‘That is not my intention,’ Gil assured him. ‘I merely wanted to give you a second chance. A chance for us.’

‘You left me, remember?’

‘I did all this for you, Jack.’

‘What? Killed someone? Terrified dozens more? Lead us out here so you could what?’ He pointed an accusing finger at the spectre. ‘You strangled me to death inside this house and you call that a test to see if I'd changed? That's not the man I knew. You're dead, Gil. The man I knew - that I loved - is dead.’

Gil seemed to grow in stature, towering more and more over Jack and filling the room. ‘I'm not. I can't ever die. I tried. I wanted it. But now I know I was meant to be with him, like I was meant to be with you. All those beautiful theories on particle causality that we used to debate. Tonight is the proof that we were right. You were meant to come here and find me and be with me again.’

Jack shook his head. ‘No. If you'd wanted that you'd have come and found me before. Not holed yourself up here to live out your days in loneliness.’

‘Don't you understand? It was the loneliness that killed me. I never stopped thinking about you. I knew you loved me.’

‘I did. But you killed someone. I don't understand why. Maybe it was the schizophrenia or maybe it was just you being scared to accept who we were and what we meant to each other. You can't change who you are. Having people know is the way to free yourself to live the life you want, not to perpetuate secrets and lies. I thought things between us were getting better, that you were having less dark thoughts. I hoped that we could finally be open about who we were. Now I know you would have never accepted it.’

Gil chuckled, but it was a mirthless, hollow sound. There was no joy in it, no humour. ‘You had more secrets than anyone, Jack. Torchwood tried to destroy us by keeping us apart with all those secrets. I tried to get you away from it but you wouldn't leave. I begged you, don't you remember?’

‘I wanted you to stay and be with me. Torchwood needed someone with your brilliance. Your talent was wasted on those stuffed shirt professors at the university, writing papers that would never be read. We could have been a team. A partnership.’

‘No. They would have used me, like they were using you. They wouldn't have understood me. I… I needed time to be alone and think. The voices…’

‘There were no voices, Gil. Whatever you imagined in your head wasn't real. I could've helped.’

Blue eyes blazed out from a haze of black and grey. ‘But you didn't! Torchwood always came first.’

‘I couldn't leave. There are things you don't know. Things that meant I had to stay there. Answers to questions. A way to make me properly human again.’ He only wished that those had been the answers. Facing up to the truth was so much harder than imagining a reality that was a fantasy. ‘Living and not dying isn't right. Everything has to die eventually.’

‘Like me?’

‘You chose it for yourself. I don't get that freedom.’ Jack dropped his head in sullen resignation. ‘I've killed myself so many times and it doesn't change anything. Now you know it too.’

‘This is better than death, better than living.’

‘It's neither. You get to rattle around this place forever.’

‘Not for much longer… Stay with me. Now we can both have forever.’

Jack shook his head sadly. ‘You're dead and I'm alive. It can never work like that.’

‘But you have already seen what I can do. I can make you see or feel anything I want. I could make you feel all the things you always wanted us to be. No more trying to ensnare me in my office at the college. I've got you ensnared now.’

‘No.’ Jack didn't know how to be any more assertive. ‘You and me, we're done.’

Gil grew small again, an attempt to appear less threatening. ‘I could keep you here. Your friends would never find you if I didn't want them to.’

The undercurrents of the threat didn't pass by Jack unnoticed. They angered him. ‘Do what you want, but a hundred years, a thousand… Keep me here and I will never acknowledge you. Not once. You will be as dead to me as you are now. If I have to burn this place to the ground, that's what I'll do. You chose death, so go and be dead. Go find the peace you couldn't find in living. Death is the only way out.’

Gil looked shaken by the admission. ‘That would kill me. Truly. Since the moment you walked into this house all I wanted was for you to see me again.’

Jack drew in a weary breath, letting it out slowly. ‘I see you, Gil. And I wish there was more I could do, but our paths were decided for us long ago. If I could change things I would, but I can't. No more than you can take back the choices you made.’

Gil nodded despondently. ‘I understand.’

Jack's heart broke for the man's plight. ‘So, what happens now? I mean, is there a way for you to… I don't know, pass over? I can't bear the thought of you stuck here forever.’

‘There is a way. There has always been a way when the time was right. Tonight shall be the last night I haunt these halls.’

‘Well, that's… good.’ Jack felt ambivalent about it. Gil was suddenly so calm, but then hadn't he always been when he'd grasped firmly onto the solution to a problem that had been bothering him. ‘And I am sorry.’

Gil bowed his head. He already seemed less defined, like he was fading, or dispersing. ‘Maybe someday you'll find that death you've been waiting for. At least we will get this one life together before you do.’

Jack nodded. ‘Maybe.’ But he didn't think so.

‘Then this is goodbye, just for now.’ Gil’s form continued to ripple and spread, becoming thinner and thinner until he was almost totally transparent, and then he was gone, vanished into a billion ghostly atoms. The temperature in the room dropped in an instant and Jack shivered, feeling more alone in the world than he ever had.


	30. Chapter 30

Gwen must have shifted a full foot of earth by the time Father Michael reappeared by her side, armed with a rusted looking shovel. He began to dig it into the ground, which was becoming more and more firmly packed the deeper Gwen dug.

‘Be careful,’ she warned him. ‘Don’t dig in too sharply.’ She had no idea if Ianto was inside a coffin or not and didn't want to injure him with a stray shovel blade. She prayed he was safely inside some kind of box, where there was at least some air to breathe. His body just lying in the dirt didn't bear thinking about.

They dug and dug. Gwen's arms ached from the effort and her shoulder rippled with white pain. Tears sprung into her eyes and she couldn't tell if they were from pain or her growing desperation. They must have dug down at least four feet by now and there was still no sign of anything. How long had it been? Were they already too late now? She begged for the sound of Father Michael's shovel hitting something solid, letting them know they were almost there. She would have cried out in delight at the feeling of wood, or of flesh, regardless of what unknown fate lay yet ahead.

Her tears were beginning to spill down her face as she forced herself to keep digging, dropping down into the hole they'd made to throw the dirt out of it by the handful, scratching down as deep as she could. In her frustration at their lack of progress, she grabbed the shovel from Father Michael's wrinkled hands and forced it into the ground as hard as she could. They must surely be close!

Father Michael resumed pulling away the dirt with his bare hands, before pausing as he knelt at the edge of the hole, casting his gaze anywhere but where he should be, down in the grave where her friend lay dead or dying. ‘What was that?’ he asked, reacting to a sound somewhere down the side of the house.

Gwen scarcely heard it herself between her ragged breaths and the sharp bite of metal forcing its way into the cold ground. ‘Doesn't matter, just help, for God's sake! Dig!’

Father Michael pointed. ‘Look. There's someone over there.’

Gwen broke away from her digging for only a split second, poking her head out of the deepening hole. She watched the figure staggering around in the dark like a drunken man. It looked human. She didn't want to leave and find out who it was. She couldn't. Not if Ianto was still trapped in the ground. He could be just inches away now. Whoever else was out here was going to have to take care of themselves.

‘No, Gwen, look!’ Father Michael insisted. ‘It's him.’

Her head immediately flew up. The outline was unmistakable now as it wandered closer, clearly seeing their own motions in the darkened yard. She almost fell over herself trying to get out of the hole and to her feet, running towards him. ‘Ianto?’ Part of her couldn't even believe what she was seeing, or whether it was even real.

‘Gwen?’ That voice and cadence was so familiar to her that she knew there wasn't a thing in the world that could convince her that he was anything other than the real thing.

‘Oh, God!’ She wrapped him in the tightest hug she could, relishing the sturdy feel of his body. She immediately dismissed the grave marker as nothing but a cruel jape, meant to frighten her. ‘Thank God you're okay.’

He hugged her back, which was rare but not unpleasant. Ianto just wasn't the hugging type, but she could tell that tonight they both needed it. ‘It was a close thing, believe me,’ he said, finally pulling away, but not altogether.

‘You're absolutely frozen,’ she declared, rubbing up and down his arms, feeling how cold they were. He looked a fright, but then she supposed she didn't look much better. ‘We should get you inside. Nice bit of warming up by the fire, what do you say?’

He shook his head vehemently. ‘You don't want to go in there. There's something evil in there. I don't know what, but it wants to kill. It's been trying to get me all night. I barely made it out of there alive.’

‘I've seen it. This place…’she began, not sure how to put it into words, ‘it’s trying to mess with us. I don't think it's just the shadow monster.’ She turned around, about to point towards the graveyard full of lights, but they'd all faded and disappeared. The place was completely dark and empty once more. ‘There were…’

‘What?’

‘Angels,’ Father Michael stated.

Gwen gave a disparaging look. ‘Yeah, let's not get carried away in labeling them as friendly.’ He hadn't been there when they'd forced her to flee through the woods. ‘Lights. Ghosts. I don't know. They were everywhere and now they're just… gone.’

‘Gone’s a good thing, yeah?’ Ianto asked. ‘Because seriously, I don't know about you but I'm ready to go home and this place can shove its ghosts up its bloody-’

Gwen cleared her throat loudly and inclined her head sideways at Father Michael.

‘Uh, sorry,’ came the feeble apology from Ianto. In different circumstances Gwen might have laughed at how much he looked like the contrite schoolboy getting a telling off from the principal.

‘There's nothing to apologise for,’ he assured the young Welshman.

Ianto turned his worried gaze on her. ‘Have you seen Jack anywhere?’

‘No. Not since we split up. But, Ianto, he's-’

She didn't get to finish telling him about the names carved into the tree. A bright beam of light hit them in square in the face, causing them both to squint and turn away before shielding their eyes and trying to pinpoint where it was coming from. Lo and behold, like an actor stepping onto the stage at precisely the perfect moment, who should be standing there by the back door, shining his torch at them, but Captain Jack Harkness.

‘How does he do that?’ Gwen muttered so quietly that Ianto barely heard her, yet shrugged all the same. Moreover, why was he all smiles when the rest of them had been terrorised all night?

Jack loped towards them. ‘Hi, kids. Were you looking for me?’


	31. Chapter 31

Jack must have seen the way Gwen tensed and kept her hand close to her hip, ready to pull the gun she had tucked into the back of her jeans. She wasn't quite ready to believe Jack was any more real than anything else she'd seen tonight. What if he was just another figment meant to lure them back inside?

Jack stopped and his hands went half-heartedly up into the air in a show of mock surrender. ‘Woah, no need to look so alarmed. It's just me.’

‘You were in there?’ Ianto said. He sounded incredulous. ‘In the house? With that thing?’

‘It's okay. The ghost problem is gone. I took care of it. No more tortured spirits upsetting this old place. Time for us to pack it up and head on home.’

Gwen couldn't believe it. It couldn't be that simple. She had a million questions. What was it that they'd all seen and experienced here? Half of it confused her and the other half almost defied explanation. How was any of it possible? And how was it that Jack had somehow vanquished whatever it was. Nothing was adding up and the feeling curdled in the bottom of her stomach.

Ianto didn't seem nearly as troubled by the simplistic explanation. He cut off any chance of Gwen bombarding Jack with her questions by practically leaping into Jack's orbit and embracing him. It was one of those carefully cultivated man hugs that Ianto was so adept at giving, without ever really having to admit how much it meant. Then he broke away just slightly from Jack, cupping his face and kissing him tenderly.

‘I'm so glad we're back together, Jack.’ Ianto cast a look back over his shoulder at Gwen and Father Michael. ‘He smells like Jack.’ It was an odd statement but Gwen took it at face value. Apparently there wasn't an alien alive who could replicate that smell - Jack's unusual scent that had nothing to do with his choice of shampoo or cologne, which emanated from his skin naturally, or perhaps unnaturally - and Ianto was an expert on it.

‘Me too, Ianto.’ Jack reached up to the hand Ianto had resting on his cheek. ‘Your hands are like ice.’

‘Keeping warm wasn't on my list of priorities.’

Jack kept one arm resting around Ianto's waist as he turned his attention to the rest of them. ‘Father, to what do we owe the pleasure? Couldn't sleep?’

‘More than you know,’ he replied. ‘This place has troubled me deeply all day and what I've seen tonight only confirms those fears.’

‘Well, like I say, you can rest at ease now. Abercrafen House will not be haunted any longer. The locals will have to find something new to amuse themselves with.’

Gwen scowled as she took a step forward. ‘No, it can't just be over, Jack. That doesn't make any sense. There was this thing, all made out of shadows and smoke.’

‘And there was blood,’ Ianto added. ‘Pouring out of the taps.’

‘Noises that couldn't be accounted for…’

‘Doors that locked you in…’

‘Broken windows that repaired themselves…’

‘Things that turned you blind…’

‘Voices in the forest…’

‘Fire. The whole cellar on fire. Burning…’ Ianto shuddered at that last remark.

‘We didn't just imagine all of those things, Jack.’ That wasn't strictly true but she had to somehow make him understand.

‘I get, Gwen. I really do. But you have to trust me when I say it's gone. I spoke with it, helped it move on.’

‘You spoke with it’ She hoped she sounded as skeptical as she felt. ‘What was it Jack, this ghost? Because I don't mind telling you that I can't believe it's just gone. There were dozens of them. Out there,’ she said, pointing behind them at the now abandoned graveyard. ‘And there was a grave. Apart from Thomas Morgan, there hasn't been another soul buried here in decades, but there's a headstone out there now with a 2009 date of death. It was freshly dug.’

‘Who?’

She gave an uncomfortable look in Ianto's direction. ‘I don't know. It just had the surname on it. No first names.’

Jack's eyes narrowed at her. ‘What surname?’

She bit her lip. ‘Jones.’ She turned to Ianto. ‘We thought it was you. I thought maybe they'd tried to bury you alive. We were digging it up when you found us.’

He seemed strangely unperturbed by the news, but then again, Ianto was often hard to read. ‘There's loads of Joneses. We're everywhere. Common as muck.’

Jack gave Ianto a reassuring squeeze against his side and a warm look in Gwen's direction meant to do the same. ‘I think it's fair to say we've all seen and experienced things tonight that weren't real.’

Gwen found Jack's guarded replies curious. ‘What did you see?’

‘I saw the real thing. The ghost of a man who could never find peace until tonight. I gave it to him.’

She folded her arms and set her gaze on him. ‘How?’

‘Doesn't matter. The ghost? It's gone.’

Father Michael shook his head. ‘No, I fear it hasn't. This house is still troubled by something.’ Gwen saw the priest fidget with the rosary beads that draped around his neck. She found his unsettled character contagious, drumming up a gut feeling inside her that everything wasn't quite as resolved as it would seem.

Gwen noticed the way Ianto seemed to take a half a step back from the priest. It was subtle but Jack caught it too. ‘It's okay. Nothing is going to get us. I told you, it's gone.’

Father Michael took a step closer to the two men and reached out a hand. Ianto immediately flinched from his touch.

‘It touched him,’ Father Michael stated.

The next few seconds were a blur for Gwen. She reacted on instinct as her hand whipped behind her to grab the gun, flipping off the safety and having it pointed in the blink of an eye. She'd done it even before she realised why.

The mask dropped and Ianto lunged. Jack was only just quick enough to grab him and pin his arms at his side.

Gwen aimed her gun with the sickening realisation that something had taken over her best friend.


	32. Chapter 32

Jack felt Ianto struggling against him as he continued to hold on tightly, but there was an unnatural strength from the Welshman that caught him by surprise. He let go and his hand flew to his webley, bringing it up so that he and Gwen had him covered from two angles. There wasn't time to be shocked or worried as his long years of experience kicked in, putting the safety of everyone else above that of one lone individual - even if that one person was the love of his life.

‘Ianto, hold it right there!’ Jack commanded.

Cornered by the two of them with their guns, Ianto seemed almost at ease as he turned to look Jack in the eye. That was when Jack knew for sure that something was very wrong. Those eyes. He always noticed the eyes and these were not those of his lover. They were ablaze with light, a bright electric blue that Jack had seen not an hour ago. They were someone else's eyes. The bottom fell out of his stomach as the realisation hit him.

‘What have you done?’

An unsettling smile tugged at the edge of Ianto's mouth as he looked back at Jack, unperturbed by the gun aimed at him. ‘What we had to do in order to finally escape this place. It's not easy to get inside someone. They have to be vulnerable, broken.’

Ianto's face broke into a beatific smile, his eyes lighting up with such gleeful joy. ‘He was perfect. You should have heard the screams. It took a lot to finally break him down but it was worth it. We enjoyed it. We almost wished we could have played with him a while longer. It’s been so long since we had anyone good to play with.’ He turned his gaze to Gwen. ‘We had fun with you, too. We wanted to watch you dig all night, trying to find his body. But he is dead, Gwen. Know that.’

‘You’re a monster!’ she cursed. ‘And he isn’t dead.’

Jack stepped in front of her, coming around so he was shielding both her and Father Michael. ‘Please. This isn't you, Gil. Remember who you are. You wouldn't do this.’

‘Gil?’ Ianto raised an eyebrow at him which was a disturbingly familiar gesture. ‘I'm not Gil. Gil lived here, yes, and we spent many years sharing our thoughts. Gil was the first, you see. The first who really understood the darkness that lives inside us all. He was the perfect vessel.’

‘You stole his body.’ Jack's words rang out sharp and accusing.

‘I became melded with Gil. He let me in. We eventually became one entity and it was glorious, finally having a physical form.’ A displeased expression warped Ianto's face transforming his smile into a snarl. ‘And then part of him knew it had made a terrible mistake. He killed himself to be rid of me, but a part of him lingered on within me as his soul was ripped from his living body.’

Some small relief washed over Jack. Gil had known. Gil had tried to undo his error before he did something terrible. That was the real Gil. Not this thing that boasted his memories, which had lured Jack into a false sense of security whilst it distracted him enough to take over his best friend.

‘There were a dozen people who came along afterwards. Why none of them?’

‘It's true. After my emancipation I knew I couldn't exist as I had anymore. I needed another body. And then you came along and I knew this one was perfect. So much darkness inside, and a part of Gil remains with me - the part that longs to be with you. It was almost too perfect. Old lovers and new lovers brought together.’

‘Jack…’ Gwen's voice was just a whisper as it vied for his attention. He practically sensed it before he saw it - those ghostly visions in the graveyard reappearing all around them as pale beacons of light.

Ianto noticed them too. He grinned as he turned to look at them all. ‘I see the Others have come to join us. The Others always knew we were wrong. The Others knew what we were. Look at them. Even now they shy away and stand there doing nothing. They are powerless against me.’

Jack looked around. The ghostly forms cast an ethereal glow, lingering by the lichen covered headstones and hovering in the windows of the house, looking out at them, but they didn't move. Jack thought he could make out the forlorn expressions on their faces. The ghosts of the people who'd lived here and had never been at peace because of the demon thing that dwelt here with them, powerless to do more than watch.

Jack scowled. ‘You can't live in that body. You know that.’

‘Why not? Your old lover, your new lover, and me. We’re all here, Jack.’ Ianto scowled at Father Michael. ‘You wouldn't have even known if the preacher wasn't here. He makes our skin crawl.’

‘I would have,' Jack replied. 'Because Gil’s not really in there, is he? Just a bunch of his memories and feelings that were projected onto you when his soul left his body. And as for Ianto…’ He didn't really want to think about it. ‘You’ve got him trapped in there like a prisoner, don't you?’

‘He doesn't need his body right now. I do.’

‘Listen to us,’ Gwen pleaded. ‘We can-’

‘No,’ Jack snapped, cutting her off. ‘We’re not negotiating with it. It knew what it was doing. It's always known, haven't you?’ Jack stepped forward. ‘Take me. Take my body instead.’

‘Jack, no!’

Jack snatched back his elbow from where Gwen had gripped it tightly. ‘You want to live forever, right? You want someone with plenty of darkness inside them. I'm a smorgasbord.’

‘We considered you but you are too strong. We never could have broken you enough.’

‘Well, now I'm letting you. The gates are wide open and ready to receive you. Just let him go.’

Ianto smiled and his expression was so beautiful Jack might have sobbed. ‘We have what we wanted. We're not going anywhere.’


	33. Chapter 33

The happy countenance on Ianto's face made Jack's anger twist and writhe inside him until he snapped. He reacted before he could stop to consider the consequences of his actions, lunging at his lover and throwing him bodily to the ground.

The pair of them hit the hard packed earth and strangling weeds with a thud. It would have knocked the air out of an ordinary person, but Jack felt Ianto go down underneath him, grabbing him tightly as he dragged Jack down with him, ready for a fight.

‘Jack, what the hell are you doing?’ came Gwen's surprised question.

Jack kept his focus on the man pinned underneath him. Were it not for the fact that he’d used a similar maneuver a hundred times, he might have struggled to get his knees either side of Ianto’s body to keep him in place. ‘Death got rid of you once. It can do it again,’ he said, wrapping his large hands around Ianto's neck and squeezing it tight. Ianto thrashed underneath him, stronger than Jack remembered - far stronger than any of their play fighting or hand to hand combat training. This was a man desperate to live, but Jack knew it wasn't life. This thing was just a parasite.

The others made no move to help him, nor to hinder him. He half expected them to grab him and try to haul him off of Ianto, stopping him from his attempts to kill. He didn’t have to see their faces to know the expressions that would be etched on them, unable to mask their horror.

He should have hated himself for doing this - for even thinking it - but there was a rising darkness inside Jack as well, one that he usually kept so well hidden. He'd been a cold blooded murderer before. He’d killed more times than he could count or remember. He knew what it was to want a man dead for his own selfish reasons. A little part of Gil was no different to him, yet he'd condemned the man for years afterwards for what he'd done. At least he'd been unwell. A part of his mind was damaged and didn’t distinguish between what was right and what was wrong. Jack had no such excuses. A single glance at Gwen and his old friend Elias, finally seeing their pale, shocked faces was enough to tell him they weren't sure who was more possessed, Ianto or Jack. Jack recognised that look as well. He’d seen it before in the faces of friends long ago. He’d been the monster then.

Ianto fought Jack the entire time he held him down. His body bucked up and down underneath Jack as he struggled to stay upright with his legs straddled either side of Ianto's torso. Ianto's fingernails bit into his hands, gouging the skin as he grabbed at them, trying to pull them away. He'd left several scratches on Jack's face and neck, clawing at him and doing anything he could to loosen Jack's grip. His legs kicked out behind Jack but could do nothing more to dislodge the man pinioning him. His noises were strangled and desperate but his eyes remained full of hate and loathing. Jack however had all the leverage as Ianto flailed beneath his weight.

Eventually Ianto's thrashing eased. It became more unpredictable, more desperate, but also weakened. Jack didn't loosen his own grip one bit. He would only get one chance at this and he'd see it through to the bitter end.

Ianto's arms swung clumsily without much effect, then his body went limp and loose beneath Jack, finally giving up its struggle. Jack held on, watching his face go from red to blue, and then white. He gripped tightly until he felt the last flutter of veins under his hands finally stop pulsing and then held on a minute longer. He wanted to sick up at what he'd done, strangling his beautiful lover to death.

He unstraddled himself, double checking for a pulse as Gwen stared down in horror at him, her hands covering her mouth as if she too were about to throw up. Jack didn’t wait for her to pass judgement, perhaps saving a bullet in her gun for him. He immediately began pumping Ianto's chest and leaning over to blow air into his lungs. There wasn't a moment to lose. Death and dying were not the same thing.

After their struggles Jack shouldn't have had a drop of energy left in him, but he kept going, drawing whatever strength he could to keep up the physical effort of trying to resuscitate Ianto. His mind blanked for a moment as the movements became automatic, disassociating himself from what he’d done.

‘Don't you die on me, you son of a bitch. I love you too much,’ Jack said, forcing more air into his empty lungs as he lay there pale and unmoving on the ground. Jack pressed on his chest harder, hearing a rib crack slightly. Jack didn’t let that trouble him. A cracked rib was a small price to pay for living. ‘Come on!’

There was a sudden gasp and a heave. Ianto's body convulsed as it struggled back into life. Jack rolled him onto his side as he coughed and gasped in more air, sucking it in huge heavy gulps. Relief flooded into Jack as he rested a hand on Ianto’s shoulder as he regained his breath before he finally pulled Ianto onto his back so that he could see the light in his eyes and kiss him.

When Ianto's head rolled back however, the eyes glowed with menace and a rictus grin spread across his face. The face hardly belonged to Ianto at all. ‘You can't kill me this time, Jack. I'm not leaving. It’s all or nothing.’

Jack’s jaw trembled as his own breath became ragged in his chest. ‘No!’

‘Yes! You can’t kill us, Jack. We’re going to live forever, and when this body finally dies, the three of us will take on another.’ Ianto’s eyes closed as he breathed in deeply, relishing his new life. ‘I can feel it. With each new soul I become stronger, and once I have enough strength, I’m coming for you, Jack. You will be the one that makes me invincible, all that darkness inside you.’

‘Not going to happen,’ Jack promised him. ‘Ianto would rather die than let you take another soul.’

‘Maybe not now, but in time. We will teach him to embrace the darkness. He will join us and it will be glorious.’ Ianto leaned towards him and Jack though he was about to kiss him. Instead he wrapped an arm around Jack's neck and pulled him close, so that Jack could feel Ianto’s breath against his cheek, cold like a winter breeze. ‘Until then, we shall enjoy playing with you,’ he whispered in Jack's ear.

It was only a split second Jack had to realise that something cold and hard was pressed against his chest between their bodies. He hadn’t seen Ianto deftly pick up the webley that he’d dropped on the ground earlier, and neither apparently had anyone else.

The gunshot rang out loudly and the bullet tore through Jack's heart, stopping it in an instant.


	34. Chapter 34

Gwen had stood there transfixed through the whole exchange. She’d watched her best friend kill her other best friend, miraculously bring him back to life, only to discover that it had all been in vain. She didn’t know what to do. She’d faced monsters and terrible viruses and all kinds of phenomena but one thing she didn't have an answer for was what to do when something had taken over her friend and wouldn't give him up. If death couldn't fix it, she wasn't sure what could.

She felt her entire body go tense as the gunshot fired. Jack was surely dead straight away, yet Ianto held Jack's body close to him. He stroked Jack’s hair as if he were comforting him as the blood seeped from his chest in a steady stream, soaking through his shirt, whilst a second dark patch formed on the back of his coat. Ianto craned his head close to Jack’s, giving him a gentle kiss as he finally lay Jack’s bleeding, broken body down on the ground. He looked up at Gwen and a jolt of fear ran through her.

‘Don’t worry. He’ll be back,’ Ianto promised her. ‘I’ll take good care of him.’

Gwen used both hands to steady her gun as it shook slightly in her grip. ‘No, you won’t,’ she told him. ‘Stay away from him.’

‘Or what, Gwen?’ he challenged. ‘You’ll shoot me? Have you become a cold blooded killer like Jack now? Maybe I’ll take you first. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You always wanted to be with Jack. You can be together with all of us. Ianto won’t mind sharing. Jack does love threesomes and moresomes.’

‘Stop talking,’ Gwen commanded. She stepped slowly forward, one foot at a time, keeping her gun trained on him. She swallowed down on her doubts. If she had to shoot him, she would. She prayed Jack would forgive her.

Jack’s heaving gasp back into life stayed her hand and diverted her focus. Ianto leaned down to hold him. ‘Shh. It’s alright. I’m here.’ He sounded so much like the old Ianto that it was scary. Would Jack be disoriented enough to believe him?

‘Get away from him!’ Gwen said.’ Get away from him or I’ll empty this gun into you, so help me.’

‘Shh,’ Ianto said, continuing to try and soothe Jack as reality began to coalesce around him again.

‘Don’t!’ Gwen warned and then Jack appeared to jolt and go limp again. Gwen assumed Ianto must have shot him again, but she hadn’t heard the gun go off. When she blinked she realised that Ianto had also gone limp, draped over Jack’s body as he remained conscious underneath him, pushing the pair of them slowly up. Ianto’s body rolled off Jack into a heap next to him.

Gwen looked up to find Father Michael just out of the corner of her eye, having pressed something to Ianto's side - one of their stun guns - rendering him unconscious. The man dressed all in back had become almost invisible in Gwen’s field of vision. How he’d gotten that close without anyone noticing was almost like divine intervention.

Gwen was at Jack’s side in an instant, kneeling beside him. ‘Are you okay?’ Jack nodded feebly, but his attention was focused on the cleric and the unconscious young man crumpled by his side.

‘Where did you get that?’ Jack asked, also noticing the gun clutched in Father Michael’s liver-spotted hand.

‘Gwen gave it to me in case of an emergency. I think this qualifies.’

Jack nodded, still looking unsteady to Gwen’s mind. ‘Yeah.’

‘Jesus Christ, Jack. What do we do?’ she asked. She felt like all of the colour had drained from her face, leaving her cold and shivering.

Jack turned away from her, staring down at his prone lover before lifting his eyes to the cleric standing beside them, looking out of place with his gun. ‘You have to help.’

‘Me?’

‘An exorcism. We have to drive the thing out of him. You've done it before.’

Father Michael gave them a bewildered shake of his head. ‘Once,’ he clarified. ‘Decades ago. And I didn't exactly know what I was doing. I can only try to beseech God to bring him back and expunge the beast within.’

‘Please,’ Jack begged, sounding more desperate than Gwen had ever heard him. Ianto had once gone all the way to hell and back to save Jack, or so Jack would have them believe. His faith had been totally unshakable and his belief that going there - wherever there was - and forgiving Jack was the answer. Gwen hadn’t quite believed that a box of matches had anything to do with hell or the devil or whatever, but the pair of them had barely spoken about what had happened. All Gwen knew was that when Jack refused to share details, there was something terrible he didn’t want them to know about.

Whatever Ianto had done had worked, which was what counted. If that was faith, then that surely meant if anyone deserved to be saved by God it was Ianto. With all that they'd seen, she understood very little about Ianto's faith and they discussed it even less, yet she knew he was observant, at least more than she had ever been. She didn't have time for religion in her life with everything else that vied for her attention. She saw too many unbelievable things to find the time for one more.

‘I can’t just whip up an exorcism,’ Father Michael stated. ‘These things need time to prepare.’

Jack’s expression turned grim. ‘Father, we don't have time. The longer that thing stays inside him, the harder it’s going to be to separate it back out. I don’t know how long it will take before that thing has a permanent grip on him. Gil spent years with it, letting it break down whatever defences he had. And now it’s learning and growing.’

Gwen didn’t want to say that it might already be too late but she prayed it wasn’t.

‘There’s no certainty that exorcism would even work. If it’s alien…’

‘Elias, please!’ Jack begged. ‘You're the one who believes that God sets us all on a path. You came here tonight for a reason. This has to be that reason.’

Father Michael reluctantly nodded in agreement. ‘I need my books. The prayer of St Michael. It's in my study.’

Jack tucked his arms under Ianto’s body and picked him up as if he were nothing more than a rag doll and not a man who must have weighed a hundred and seventy pounds. Gwen moved to help him but he hefted Ianto over his shoulder before she could do anything. Jack was through the back door and the kitchen before she and Father Michael could even catch up with him. He strode right across the foyer and Gwen caught up only just in time to pull open the heavy front doors as he made a beeline for the SUV.

She helped him get Ianto into the back seat and then just as she was about to crawl in beside him, Jack tossed the keys at her head. ‘You drive. Father Michael will give you directions.’ She didn't need telling twice that she was going to push the SUV as fast as it would go and just hope that the priest could keep up. She barely waited for the old man to slide into the passenger seat beside her before she had the tyres biting and skidding through the gravel, hurtling back down the twisting laneway and onto the main road into town. She spared only a fleeting moment to catch Jack’s reflection in the rear vision mirror as he held Ianto’s body close.


	35. Chapter 35

The tiny stone building came into view in the blink of an eye as the SUV sped towards it, barely slowly as Gwen swung the wheel sideways, hitting the brakes and coming to a stop perpendicular. Jack sucked in a breath as he imagined his entire salvation - or rather Ianto’s - lying within those walls.

‘Gwen, go help Father Michael find his books and whatever else he needs.’ His order brooked no argument as the pair of them ran towards the small cottage that lay hidden from view behind the church itself.

Jack carried Ianto's across the grass and through the tiny doors of the chapel. He squeezed them past the small row of dark timbered pews. There were only five rows able to fit inside the narrow stone interior and each would only have seated three parishioners at most. The night struggled to filter its way through the beveled stone windows, with only the main latticed glass windows at the very front of the church casting any sort of light down the nave.

Stepping up to the bema, he laid Ianto down on the cold slate floor. His body was unmistakably cold, like he was wrapped up in death already. ‘You need to come back to me, Ianto,’ Jack pleaded. ‘This was not the way I planned on us going down the aisle.’ Fanciful as it was, he imagined flowers and friends and Ianto in his best suit with a gorgeous red tie and waistcoat to match. He did not imagine being cold and scared. If there had ever been any kinds of gods, he prayed to them now as he shucked his coat and tucked it under Ianto, wrapping him up in it.

A wooden door creaked on rusting hinges as Gwen and Father Michael came bursting in from somewhere beyond the tiny sacristy. They carried two boxes between them as Gwen set hers down and began frantically unpacking it. They almost didn't even notice Jack kneeling there on the floor.

‘What are you doing?’ he implored, expecting Father Michael to begin at once. ‘We’re wasting time. Time Ianto doesn’t have.’

Father Michael looked over his shoulder at Jack even as he was pulling thick pillar candles out of a box and setting them on the table behind the lectern. Gwen was similarly hanging metal lanterns on hooks in the stone walls all around the tiny chapel interior.

‘The devil does his work in darkness. I dare not attempt this without as much light as we can.’ He lit one slender candle and handed it to Gwen to begin lighting the rest even as he took a second slender white candle and began lighting up candles in the wall sconces and on the table.

‘Jack, for God’s sake, don’t just sit there! Help us,’ Gwen demanded. Reluctantly he pulled himself to his feet and moved to take a lit candle, using it to ignite the well used wicks of others, but always with one eye on his lover lying there helplessly on the floor, fighting an invisible battle for survival.

Slowly the small chapel began to glow with a muted yellow light as they moved around, lighting every last possible source. There was a palpable tension in the air at what they were about to do as Jack resumed his spot, knelt next to Ianto.

Father Michael picked up the ancient looking tome off the table and pulled it open, searching for the right passage. He lay the book in the crook of his elbow as his spare hand reached for the large black cross hanging from the centre of his rosary. He gave Jack one last look before beginning. ‘I cannot make any promises.’

‘Please just try,’ Jack pleaded, taking Ianto’s hand in his, feeling it cold like ice.

The priest held out his cross in front of his body as he came to stand over the pair of them.

‘O glorious Archangel St. Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, defend us in battle, and in the struggle which is ours against the principalities and Powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, against spirits of evil in high places.’

‘Come to the aid of men, whom God created immortal, made in his own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil.’

Jack watched Ianto’s face for any signs of change but it remained pale and unmoving.

‘Fight this day the battle of the Lord, together with the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there a place for them any longer in Heaven. But that cruel, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan, who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with all his angels.’

There was a twitch. Jack felt it move down Ianto’s arm as his head jolted sideways, reacting to the words that were spoken. It twitched again, this time in the opposite direction, like he was trapped in a bad dream, unable to wake. Jack's heart leapt with anticipation, beginning to beat faster in his chest.

‘Behold, this primeval enemy and slayer of man has taken courage, Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the name of God and of his Christ, to seize upon, slay and cast into eternal perdition souls destined for the crown of eternal glory.’

‘Virus nequitiae suae, tamquam flumen immundissimum, draco maleficus transfundit in homines depravatos mente et corruptos corde; spiritum mendacii, impietatis et blasphemiae; halitumque mortiferum luxuriae, vitiorum omnium et iniquitatum.’

Jack could feel vibrations coursing through his own body as if something were trying to be leached from it as well. The words were filling the room with an energy that Jack could sense. It rippled the air and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up on end. He knew Gwen could feel it too. She knelt opposite him and reached over Ianto's body for his other hand and clapsed it between her own two, unsure whether it was for his comfort or hers.

‘These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on her most sacred possessions.’

Ianto’s eyes flew open and there was a guttural cry as consciousness ripped through his body like a piercing blade. His eyes blazed out a bright blue light and Jack knew it was the thing inside him, raging against the invocations being made. He writhed in some unspoken agony.

Father Michael paused a moment, uncertainty and worry etched across his face.

‘Keep going!’ Jack cried. He feared what might happen if they stopped. The creature knew they were here now and what they were trying to do. Jack knew it would fight them at every turn and that they couldn't give it a moment to regain any strength.

‘Ubi sedes beatissimi Petri et Cathedra veritatis ad lucem gentium constituta est, ibi thronum posuerunt abominationis et impietatis suae; ut percusso Pastore, et gregem disperdere valeant.’

Ianto's eyes rolled back in his head showing nothing but the terrible whites. His back arched so impossibly that Jack was certain his whole spine would snap in two, paralysing him completely. The hand that Jack had taken at the beginning was now trapped in a vice-like grip, Ianto’s knuckles bright white as they clutched it.

‘Arise then, O invincible prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and bring them to victory.’

Jack yelled in pain as he felt Ianto’s hand tighten with inhuman strength, shattering the bones in Jack's hand and crushing them to pieces. Even with Jack's hand now a mangled and floppy mess of broken bones Ianto didn't let Jack go, and neither could Jack pull it away. Bolts of pain lanced up Jack's arm as the fist continued to crush it. The sheer pain of it took his breath away.

Father Michael’s voice grew louder and more forceful, trying to be heard over Jack’s pained cries and Ianto's gasping breaths. ‘Te custodem et patronum sancta veneratur Ecclesia; te gloriatur defensore adversus terrestrium et infernorum nefarias potestates; tibi tradidit Dominus animas redemptorum in superna felicitate locandas!’

The room began to shudder. Windows rattled in their cast iron frames, wooden pews clattered and knocked together as if moved by an earthquake, and bits of grit and dust tumbled down from the aging beams and stonework overhead. An invisible force tugged at their clothing and whipped through their hair. Jack fought through his own physical pain before something else overwhelmed him. He felt like he’d been struck by lightning. It travelled up his arm and lanced across his body, setting every nerve ending on fire. Gwen cried out in pain as she let go of his hand.

‘Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church!’ Father Michael roared.

Candles around the chapel began to flicker, some of them all the way out as a new battle began. A dark cloud began to form around Ianto, and Jack in turn. It grew thicker and denser, enveloping them in a choking fog. Jack could no longer make out the man beside him but through the hand that gripped his, he could feel Ianto’s body convulsing violently. Jack's own body began to shake uncontrollably. The whole chapel seemed to shudder and the roof creaked and cracked, threatened to collapse in on them.

Father Michael tried to grip the lectern with his hand to steady himself. ‘Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the Lord; and beating down the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou cast him in chains in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations. Amen!’

The black cloud exploded outward, hitting them with a blast wave so powerful it knocked Jack flat on his black as it erupted in all directions, knocking furniture against the walls, sending lanterns smashing from their hooks to the floor and blowing out every last flame of light before the church fell completely silent and dark.


	36. Chapter 36

Jack felt paralysed in the dark and the silence. It took several moments before he could so much as twitch a finger, curling it in and out, before feeling a sense of movement returning to the rest of his body. His head throbbed and he realised he was no longer flat on the floor, but half upright, tangled in a pile of wooden seating that was now overturned against the wall, his head having taken the brunt of the impact.

He reached up to the aching spot near his crown with the hand that wasn't still halfway through healing itself. Bones reformed slowly and painfully in his right hand, distracting him from the head wound.

As he tried to refocus his vision in the dark, he found himself six yards away from where he'd been. Gwen had rolled several yards in the opposite direction and Father Michael was clutching to the table that had stopped him from being thrown any further away.

'Jesus…' Gwen breathed, crawling up onto her knees and brushing her hair out of her face.

Father Michael gave a shuddering breath. 'Not Jesus. God.'

Jack crawled quickly over to Ianto, whose body hadn't moved an inch, being at the epicentre of all of it. 'That is not how I remembered it happening last time,' he said.

Father Michael stayed seated on the floor, still too shaken to attempt putting his feet under him. 'This demon was far more powerful than what we faced previously. I could feel it trying to reach through you. One last attempt to save itself, I suppose.'

Jack nodded. He had felt something trying to pull through him from Ianto - some terrible darkness. It had tried to reach Gwen as well, but she'd relinquished her grip on Jack's hand just in time.

He crouched over the young man, trying to understand if what they’d done had saved him. He was completely still, yet his chest rose and fell with shallow but regular motions. He was still pale but some colour was beginning to return to his face and hands, and as Jack retook Ianto’s hand in his own now healed one, he could feel it warm and soft. He tugged the edges of the thick woolen coat around Ianto and pulled him close, feeling more of that reassuring warmth emanate from the rest of his body.

'Jack?' Gwen's voice was full of tentative worry. She looked the more shaken of the pair. Both he and Elias had seen an exorcism before and were somewhat prepared for it, but there was no real way to prepare anyone for what they'd just experienced.

Jack looked up at her and then across at the priest. 'Father?' he asked, looking for some kind of confirmation.

Father Michael reached out a wrinkled hand and laid it on Ianto's brow. 'Yes, I think it has been purged.' He made the sign of the cross with his thumb over the waxen skin. 'I no longer sense that same dark spirit as before. For the first time in a long time, it feels like a heaviness has lifted from this place.'

'But where has it gone?' Gwen asked.

'Vanquished back to the deepest depths of Hell,' he replied.

'Hell?' she said, her voice laden with that old Torchwood skepticism.

'That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy,' Jack quoted.

Gwen looked at Jack, then Father Michael and back at him. 'Sometimes I feel it's like I don't understand anything.'

Father Michael rested a hand on her shoulder. 'One cannot expect that understanding will lead to belief. Rather, one must believe in order to be able to finally understand.'

'Did God say that?'

His smile was warm and reassuring. 'No. I did. For I am old and have learned many of the lessons that the young will only obtain with time.'

'And some of us,' Jack added, 'though old we be, still have many lessons to learn.' He clutched Ianto more tightly to his chest. 'Let's get him out of here and some place warm.'

Gwen gave him a concerned look. 'Shouldn't he be awake by now? He is okay, isn't he?'

'The last time we tried this, the young girl we saved took two days to come around. For once, we just have to be patient and trust to something we can't see.'

They carried him back to Father Michael's modest cottage and settled him in the bed. Father Michael brought extra blankets, a small flannel and a bowl filled with warm water that Jack used in gentle strokes across Ianto's face and hands, cleaning away the sweat and grime.

When he was done, he fussed over Gwen instead, carefully prodding her injured shoulder which had made itself evident when he asked her to help him lift Ianto into bed.

'How did you injure it?' he asked, fixing a makeshift sling in place to keep it from moving.

'Oh, you know, just threw myself out of a first floor window. Nothing major.'

He chuckled. 'I tried that too, but my landing was a little softer than yours.'

'You're like a cat with nine lives, Jack. You always land on your feet.'

He shook his head. 'Not always.' He only had to look back at how his past kept coming back to haunt him to know that.


	37. Chapter 37

Jack had almost dropped off to sleep when he finally felt Ianto stir. If Father Michael's bed hadn't been so religiously small and spartan, Jack might have lifted the thin patchwork duvet and clambered in next to him. He was tired enough to sleep for two days himself.

As it was Gwen had been napping at the end of the bed, sat in a wooden chair pilfered from the kitchen, with her upper body slumped over the bed, using her good arm for a pillow. Her bedside vigil had not been as successful as his own, succumbing to sleep within an hour.

He reluctantly woke her a few hours later, sending her packing with Father Michael to see the local town doctor to get her shoulder checked out. He was fairly certain the ligaments were torn and needed more than his rudimentary first aid skills and a sling. She'd argued in her typical fashion that she was fine and wanted to stay until Ianto woke up, but he used all his Captain influence on her to finally convince her to go. And a little piece of him wanted this moment alone when Ianto woke. He felt like he owed Ianto that much.

'Hey.' He ran a hand over Ianto's face, still pale and worn. Blue eyes stared bleary up at him, trying to clear the fug. 'What do you remember?'

Ianto's face scrunched up in that adorable way of his when he was trying to think hard. 'Not sure,' he replied, carefully evading the question.

'That's okay.'

He shifted slightly under the covers. 'Where am I?'

'Father Michael's.'

He looked down at himself and saw the narrow single bed he was lying on. 'Not the king suite you promised, then.'

Jack smiled. No one could wake from an exorcism and deliver such a dry Ianto Jones line other than the genuine article. 'Maybe next time,' Jack promised.

'Or maybe you just owe me a real holiday next time.'

Jack nodded. 'That too.'

'France? Wasn't that what you said?'

'Or maybe somewhere a little further abroad. More tropical.' A week of sunny beaches and blue water was just what the doctor ordered, and no less than what was deserved.

Ianto gave him another little frown. 'Gwen?'

Jack squeezed his hand reassuringly. 'Sorting out that busted shoulder. Local GP should be able to put it to rights until we can get back to Cardiff. Rhys will no doubt have words for me,' he added, trying to lighten the mood. 'Or a cricket bat.'

Ianto nodded feebly. 'Okay.' He didn't seem to want to say anymore on the subject. He was sometimes strange like that, yet it was so overwhelmingly Ianto. Most people would be overbrimming with questions. Jack guessed he already knew and remembered more than he was letting on. That was okay. If and when he wanted to talk about it, Jack would be there, ready and waiting.

'Why don't you get some more rest? There's no rush for us to  
leave.'

Ianto acquiesced easily, nestling his head back down into the pillow and closing his eyes.

Jack ran his hand over Ianto's forehead and through his hair before quietly getting up and leaving.

As he closed the door behind him he could already hear another one opening as Gwen and Father Michael returned.

'What's the diagnosis?'

Gwen had a proper sling replacing Jack's earlier efforts. She was also toting a small paper bag that no doubt had some much needed painkillers. 'Torn ligament, just like you said.'

Jack smirked. 'What did I tell you?'

Gwen rolled her eyes at him. 'Makes me wonder why you bothered sending me out to see a real doctor.'

'Better safe than sorry. You wouldn't want me performing surgery on you, would you? I'd probably cut off the wrong limb.'

'How's Ianto?'

Jack shoved his hands in his pockets and suppressed a yawn. 'Just woke up and on Captain's orders for some more rest. Same goes for you. There's a perfectly good armchair over there with your name on it,' he said, nodding his head toward the battered looking furniture which had just the right amount of well worn comfort.

Gwen's brow creased as she looked at him.' Couldn't we just go? Not that your little town isn't lovely, Father,' she qualified, giving him a sympathetic smile, 'but all the same, I'm not sure the country life suits me as much as I thought.'

Father Michael folded his hands behind his back and acknowledged the statement with a little bow. 'You would be quite forgiven. And I think I do need to forgive you. The number of occasions you and your friends invoke the name of our Lord and Savior in vain are quite shocking to the ears of a man who has led an uneventful life dedicated to God for so many years now.'

If the statement was intended to make Gwen blush, she didn't outwardly show it. Jack smiled at her unyielding resistance to faith. 'Your alien hunting days are well and truly behind you, huh?' he asked Father Michael, hoping to draw him in with the teasing question.

'Very much so. Yet I fear Abercrafen House shall carry its tales of haunting for a long while to come yet. People do have an unnatural love of the macabre.'

'And someone still has to go back up there to collect all our equipment. That'd be me,' Jack added before anyone else could interject. 'And before you ask, Gwen, no I haven’t told Ianto about the broken back window. He can be pissed at you about that later.'

And he would be, Jack knew. He'd moan and complain the whole way home, unable to ignore the fact that their car now had extra air conditioning in a season where heating was the only setting to have on. Jack was looking forward to listening to it. Having things back to normal was just how he liked it.

Gwen ignored his attempts to change the subject on her. 'Are you ever going to tell us the whole story, Jack?'

He grinned. 'One day,' he said without making a firm commitment. 'Preferably when we're all half drunk and stuffing our faces with crisps in the rowdiest pub in Cardiff where stories like that aren't going to spook anyone.'


End file.
